He is worried complacency has set in across the community over the flu pandemic and that misinformation, confusion and a lack of understanding about the severity of the infection could potentially lead to deaths.

He is concerned the decision as to whether staff and patients at hospitals and aged care centres are vaccinated is being left to the discretion of management.

"I am worried that a lack of a proactive policy may mean that it is left up to employees of health care facilities to choose to have a vaccination or not," Dr Miceli said.

"I know of senior medical administrators who, despite their medical training, believe themselves to be 'conscientious objectors' and who have even denied the normal childhood vaccinations to their own children.

"Allowing non-scientific, fringe and anti-immunisation opinions to influence the policy of a hospital or to affect the debate in the community and slow the rate of immunisation must be combated at all costs. Such obfuscation as 'matter of opinion' and 'personal rights' is nonsense."

Dr Miceli says institutions would find it difficult to defend the death of someone due to swine flu if it was contracted from a unimmunised staff member. The vaccine, made available free of charge by the Federal Government last month, is aimed at preventing a pandemic of the virus that proved impossible to contain within Australia, particularly Victoria.

"Isolation attempts clearly did not work with swine flu and our health system has proved incapable of coping with pandemics," Dr Miceli said.

He says H1N1 could be contracted through an unimmunised staff member in an aged care facility, potentially infecting dozens of the residents and leading to deaths.

"I am concerned that even one unimmunised nurse, carer or cleaner could transmit the flu to dozens of residents of a nursing home, even through one brief exposure, before they were aware themselves that they had influenza."