To insist on vaccinated carers

[Oblahdeeoblahdoe]

One of the carers who goes into my elderly mum has refused the vaccine (she told mum) I'm really annoyed and want to request to the management that she doesn't attend to mum anymore. I feel if she wants to do this job she should have the vaccine in order to protect her clients. I know there's no proof yet it will protect against transmission on but most scientists believe it will. AIBU?

"There's been a very high level of doctors who are not going to get this vaccine,"

What is your source for thiis please?

I wouldn't want an unvaccinated carer around any of my family. The vaccine is not 100% effective so we need carers to have the vaccination to decrease the chance of them contracting it and passing it on to those being cared for.
If they don't, then they shouldn't 'care' for our vulnerable loved ones because they don't care.

I know there's no proof yet it will protect against transmission on but most scientists believe it will. AIBU? Yea you’re being unreasonable, what happened to bodily autonomy, the right to choose etc.it’s a trial and people taking it are test cases

"I just got an email from a colleague who is desperately worried as her daughter who has a history of allergies and sensitivities had the vaccine and promptly developed inflammation of the brain."

I think your colleague should prepare for a lot of media interest in this since none of the covid vaccines contain live virus capable of causing infection leading to spinal chord or brain inflammation, and encephalitis is not listed as a side effect of any of the covid vaccines.

@Updatemate

The fact that so many people in the medical field are refusing this vaccine tells you everything.

I work for the NHS. I manage a vaccine hub. I don't know a single doctor who has refused the vaccine. I know some who due to allergies chose the AZ over Pfizer and know 1 who can't have either due to allergies. Those refusing are generally HCPs, non-medical staff etc. They may be considered "in a medical field" but they do not have much if any medical training.

Healthcare professionals don’t have much if any medical training?

Are you sure?

They can't comply to your request without breaking the law but I presume she will get hounded out by the relatives pretty quickly. If this occurs its bullying. We are all just one step away from the Chinese approach!

What a world we live in when people are being judged and now discriminated against at work for not having the vaccine.

Its her choice, if she doesn't want it for what ever reason it is her CHOICE! She will still be wearing full PPE on shift as will all the other staff. It wont effect the level of care she provides to your mother!

Leave the poor woman alone, if you complaine she will be approached and the pressure will be applied by management and she will be pressured into have it and isnt it awfull that in 2021 our choices and fredoms are being taken away from us.
Her body, her choice!

The vaccine is not manditory in any profession.
And no im not a covid idiot or anti vaxxer.

You can't force her to have a vaccination. It. Throwing a tantrum to management might result in your mum not actually having a carer anymore.

@BiggestJulie

A top London law firm thinks it might be possible for care homes employers to insist on vaccination. From Pinsent Masons:

"Can employers mandate vaccination?

An instruction to take the vaccine could be regarded as a 'reasonable instruction' on the part of the employer, but that will depend on the circumstances. For example, employers in the social care sector may be able to issue a reasonable instruction to employees to take the vaccine because refusal could put vulnerable people at risk."

The law is unclear, and needs to be tested. I certainly would not want an unvaccinated worker caring for my parents.

You can't exactly hold people down and stick a needle in them. I think there would be a lot of counter lawsuits or an even worse problem with recruiting care home workers than there is now.

Another point . A manager cannot actually tell you which carers have had vaccinations and which have not. So you won't actually know anyway.
It will be interesting what management say to you when you phone.

All vaccines reduce transmission: that’s just what they do. The only thing to be determined is by %.

YANBU. Countries such as Greece have already started prof of vaccination before entry. You have the right to consider this issue when deciding who’s going to care for a vulnerable lives one.

@Saz12

You can insist all you like, but if the care agency doesn’t have enough vaccinated carers you’re not going to get very far. We have a UK shortage of carers. Make the underpaid, under respected ones we do have feel they are being “forced” to vaccinate and we’ll have an even greater shortage.

I’m absolutely pro-vaccine (and have had it myself), but if a healthy early-20-something decides to wait a few months in case the risk to them from having the vaccine is higher than risk posed to them by Covid, then it’s not indicative of them being an insane rabid-antivaxx conspiracy-theorist.

If your DM has been vaccinated then the reality is that her carers pose only a tiny tiny risk to her.

100 million people have had the vaccine globally. I fail to see what ‘waiting a few more months’ will science.

Will achieve*

@Oblahdeeoblahdoe

I have no intention of discussing on here why my DM has paid carers. All I will say is that my DM and I greatly appreciate the care she receives and frequently express this to the people concerned. I am however not pleased that this particular carer telling my DM that she refused the vaccine, in quite a dismissive manner from what my DM says. As I said earlier on, the family have made great sacrifices in order to keep Mum safe and I don't want this jeopardised by an anti-vaxer.

Refusing a vaccine that's unlicensed, brand new ( especially when you have no idea of the circumstances of why it was refused) does not make you an anti Vaxer. Also, sounds like you just have the word of your mother. Why's she's said she has been told.

Honestly it’s quite clear some of the people in this thread are lacking awareness of the care sector and the pressures they have had with staffing for years. It’s a minimum wage job and carers have mostly not been given the respect they should have had over the years for doing a job many others couldn’t do. If you start to enforce your ideals there will be mass shortages. My solution is why don’t you move in with your mum op or mum go and live with you then you don’t have to worry about the ‘risk’ of unvaccinated carers.

I do think it's shocking that caring is a minimum wage profession to be honest. The whole system seems broken.

Of course you should insist. My employer has the right to insist I am safe to myself and others at work. Why is a carer special and above this?

YANBU.

I'd request it. I think it's ridiculous that healthcare workers to the elderly are allowed to deny the vaccine and continue on working.

They can refuse it, sure. But for me, that should be the end of close contact work. In the same way I'm not allowed to work unless I've done my health and safety training to make sure I'm not a risk to myself or my colleagues and customers.

@Potterurotter

Honestly it’s quite clear some of the people in this thread are lacking awareness of the care sector and the pressures they have had with staffing for years. It’s a minimum wage job and carers have mostly not been given the respect they should have had over the years for doing a job many others couldn’t do. If you start to enforce your ideals there will be mass shortages. My solution is why don’t you move in with your mum op or mum go and live with you then you don’t have to worry about the ‘risk’ of unvaccinated carers.

Salary is completely irrelevant to this discussion.

You can’t insist that carers have the vaccine.

You can request that your relative is not attended by unvaccinated carers.

I expect individual risk assessments of people needing care in future will take their vulnerabilities to Covid 19 into account and those most at risk will be allocated to carers who have been vaccinated.

It won’t ever be mandatory but it will become an expectation.

Several doctors and nurses I work with in an A&E dept have refused, not because of pregnancy/allergy. It's not just carers with no medical training 🙄

I do understand peoples concerns about non vaccinated staff. But I don't believe that employment law will ever (any time soon) allow discrimination against staff who refuse a vaccine.

If you want such levels of control over who cares for your loved ones, maybe do it yourself

Salary is completely irrelevant to this discussion

No its not. Salary to skill ratio means some jobs are really hard to recruit in, we had the same issue in retaining pharmacy technicians, two of mine left when they opened a new Lidl nearby (better pay and more contract benefits).

It means people in a similar position to OP may not have a choice of carer at all.

I can understand how you feel I would request someone else to.

It certainly will impact those going into healthcare careers if they haven’t been vaccinated and bank workers

I am sure you do feel annoyed, at the beginning of the covid crisis off spring of the elderly were very worried, some taking their parents on themselves
we have had this virus for a year, you could call the company and have a discussion. say for a trial you would prefer not to have unvaccinated carers, and then you can see how it goes op?