Flu season is just around the corner in Nova Scotia, and for the second year in a row, the flu vaccine is free for everyone.

Dr. Robert Strang, chief public health officer for the province, said 38 per cent of Nova Scotians got immunized last year.

"It takes time to get a habit of everybody getting a flu shot every year and we're investing in that and looking forward to increasing those numbers," he said Monday.

Dr. Scott Halperin, director of the Canadian Center for Vaccinology at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, said the people who look after the sick also need to do better when it comes to getting a flu shot.

"Health care workers really don't have the right to get their patients sick," he said.

"The duty of care that we have as healthcare providers to do all we can to protect our patients from harm and that's something that we can do to protect them."

Last year, only 37 per cent of staff at Capitol Health got the flu shot. So this season, workers are being offered prizes like coffee, air miles, even cash if they get immunized.

But Halperin said incentives aren't enough.

"I think we should make it mandatory. Health care workers should be given the option of being immunized or not working during the flu season," he said.

Strang said it's not time to do that yet.

"There's a whole host of legal and sort of human resource kind of issues you get into when you make something like the flu shot mandatory, and I think there's a lot of things we can do before we need to go there," he said.

The shots start this week.