Mandatory Covid jabs for health workers

[WinnieSmith]

"Govt ‘absolutely thinking’ about mandatory Covid jabs for health workers, UK vaccine minister says"

www.rt.com/uk/525218-govt-thinking-mandatory-jabs-healthcare/

Should Covid jabs be mandatory for healthcare workers?

IABU - yes
IANBU - no

chickenyhead
I will fight for the right to choose, even though personally pro vaccine. It is a slippery slope to start making thing mandatory.

Does anyone else remember the hoo-ha and fuss when seatbelts were made mandatory, or crash-helmets for people riding motorbikes?

Funny how that sort of died down when it was established how much fatal accidents had been reduced as a result of these draconian measures.

And that was entirely for the benefit of the people who would otherwise have made a nasty mess of their cars or the road by bleeding out there or scattering bits of themselves about in a gory way, not for the safety of anyone else.

What SARS-=CoV-2 vaccines do is greatly reduce the chance of needing to be hospitalised/dying yourself, and the chance of your transmitting the virus if you do get it.

I can't feel that fighting for the right to be a drain on the health service and potentially fatal to your friends, colleagues and patients is necessarily the best thing to do.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

chickenyhead I will fight for the right to choose, even though personally pro vaccine. It is a slippery slope to start making thing mandatory.

Does anyone else remember the hoo-ha and fuss when seatbelts were made mandatory, or crash-helmets for people riding motorbikes?

Funny how that sort of died down when it was established how much fatal accidents had been reduced as a result of these draconian measures.

And that was entirely for the benefit of the people who would otherwise have made a nasty mess of their cars or the road by bleeding out there or scattering bits of themselves about in a gory way, not for the safety of anyone else.

What SARS-=CoV-2 vaccines do is greatly reduce the chance of needing to be hospitalised/dying yourself, and the chance of your transmitting the virus if you do get it.

I can't feel that fighting for the right to be a drain on the health service and potentially fatal to your friends, colleagues and patients is necessarily the best thing to do.

Totally agree. Those with the "right to choose" are going to be first in line to pay additional taxes for the drain on the nhs system and volunteer as volunteer teachers when the schools shut down again and our kids are all being left behind? That's great!!

So silly comparing a vaccine to a seatbelt or helmet.

No, vaccines shouldn’t be compulsory for healthcare workers. I really don’t like the angry comments on this and other forums, from, in many cases people who have comfortably worked from home throughout the pandemic while health and care workers had no choice but to carry on. Now people want them to have no choice about a vaccine.

Oh! I see. You aren't going to engage with what I actually did say, or read the links.

You are just going to carry on with the hyperbole.

I'll leave you to it. But at least now others can see what you are doing.

@baldafrique

If you forced in post care home staff to all be vaccinated then surely loads would quit and the homes would be totally fucked? That surely doesnt help much? Its not like there are loads of people desperate to get into that line of work. It would be a disaster. As much as we all might like everyone to be vaccinated, forced vaccination in this sector will backfire spectacularly.

How is it any better if the staff risk killing their vulnerable residents?

Unsafe care is not care.

Would you want your vulnerable parents or grandparents to die because the staff in their home gave them Covid?

And with hospitals, one fifth of Covid infections were caught on wards. Why should vulnerable patients die because staff infect them?

Hospitals and care homrs have a duty of care to the vulnerable.

If it doesn't become mandatory, vaccinated elderly and vulnerable in London (where 1 in 5 staff have refused the vaccine) should be rehoused elsewhere. It's potentially indirect race discrimination otherwise. They have the same right to safe care in hospital and residential homes as anyone else - and because around 60% of Londoners are non white British, failure to protect them could be indirect race discrimination.

Separately, UK wide, it is potential disability discrimination - failing in the duty of care.

Dentists & surgeons are well paid -- also the jab is required most of all to protect THEM. Also, the HepB jab is a one-off (or pairs, but not boosters required each year).

Social Careworkers & covid, none of previous applies.

Careworkers will have to change their job title. There's no care when you're killing your residents. It's not as if Covid is the same as mercy killing. If you want that, there are drugs that can be used to give a humane painless death.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

hyperbole

others can see what you are doing

Trying to make a valid point. I've said it over and over again - I'm not anti covid vaccine nor the process used to develop it - it's just not comparable to e.g. the hep vaccine.

This isn't "hyperbole" - www.dictionary.com/browse/hyperbole

@Tealightsandd

Careworkers will have to change their job title. There's no care when you're killing your residents. It's not as if Covid is the same as mercy killing. If you want that, there are drugs that can be used to give a humane painless death.

You're being a bit hysterical and I say that as someone very pro vaccine who was first in the queue in December to get injected. Patients in care homes will be vaccinated themselves to prevent from serious illness. Patients in hospitals will be mixed with other patients who may or may not be vaccinated. Yes it would be ideal if all staff had the vaccine but let's try to be rational. The greatest risk is to the unvacinated so the best thing anyone concerned can do is to make sure they are vaccinated themselves and take precautions.

@Tealightsandd

If it doesn't become mandatory, vaccinated elderly and vulnerable in London (where 1 in 5 staff have refused the vaccine) should be rehoused elsewhere. It's potentially indirect race discrimination otherwise. They have the same right to safe care in hospital and residential homes as anyone else - and because around 60% of Londoners are non white British, failure to protect them could be indirect race discrimination.

Separately, UK wide, it is potential disability discrimination - failing in the duty of care.

I'd like to see that tried in court - HCP declines vaccine (body autonomy) vs indirect discrimination against someone vulnerable who they may or may not ever come into contact with.

Also, where are you going to move all the elderly Londoners too? There's a social care crisis, not enough beds in care homes and not enough social carers full stop. Think they would be at higher risk of dieing from lack of care provision rather than an unvaccinated care worker wearing appropriate PPE, especially if they've been vaccinated themselves.

Ah so it's "hysterical" to expect safe care for the vulnerable, but not hysterical to tantrum about a common occurrence - a new job requirement being introduced.

Unsafe care is not care. It's no better than not having care in the first place.

Fact: 1 in 5 Covid infections were caught on hospitals wards.

Also fact: the elderly and vulnerable might be less protected by vaccines - and therefore rely on those providing care to them to also be vaccinated.

Fact no. 3: Hospitals and care homes have a duty of care to the vulnerable.

You bet senior MPs will not send their own vulnerable family members to a home full of unvaccinated staff.

Anyone who is paying will vote with their feet and will choose a safe alternative.

Theluggage15
So silly comparing a vaccine to a seatbelt or helmet

I was responding to the notion that mandatory protection for idiots is a "slippery slope"; it happened back in 1983 for seatbelts, 1973 for crash-helmets.

Or perhaps mandatory gas-heater inspection is a slippery slope? Or any one of hundreds of other laws designed to protect people from their own and other people's "right" to endanger lives?

@StarlightLady

The Yellow Fever vaccine is mandatory for GPs, so we are not on the new ground often cited here.

Where do you live? It’s certainly not mandatory in the UK.

Anyone who is paying will vote with their feet and will choose a safe alternative.

They'll be choosing a vaccinated alternative, if it's available. That doesn't make it safe, it means the staff are vaccinated.

Personally I don't think that the highest 'qualification' of putting someone in a care home should be a vaccination of the staff against covid.

Going to be the age old thing, this will go one way or the other, then people will forget about it and residents will go back to having substandard care, while increasing home owners profits, delivered by poorly trained, regarded and paid care workers, and no one giving a shit because they've banged their drum.

So none of the systematic issues that led to so many problems will be addressed, but all the care workers will be vaccinated or out of a job, so that'll be fine, the people being most vocal and dismissing genuine concerns about how this is going to play out aren't the ones going to pick up the pieces, again, are they?

The Yellow Fever vaccine is mandatory for GPs, so we are not on the new ground often cited here.

Really? A vaccine for a disease that can't exist in this country is mandatory?

Nope

HCP declines vaccine (body autonomy)
Yes. And - freedom works both ways. Employer autonomy to employ somebody else - someone who meets the necessary job requirements.

where are you going to move all the elderly Londoners too?
Anyone who is paying for their care (or their family) will simply choose a home outside of London.

Separately, despite some generally older settled down stage of life families moving out of London, it retains its draw to younger people who want to build their career (and social life) there. Housing swap potential. There are also a lot of areas in other parts of the UK that do not have a housing crisis. Higher unemployment maybe but that's irrelevant for elderly or non working disabled.

substandard care, while increasing home owners profits, delivered by poorly trained, regarded and paid care workers, and no one giving a shit because they've banged their drum.

It shouldn't be one form of unsafe care versus another. None of this is ok. Care has been shit for years and the sector desperately needs sorting out (personally I'd prefer Dignitas for myself but that choice is hard on families and unaffordable to many).

However, adding an additional layer of shit unsafe care to already shit unsafe care isn't going to help. You don't improve care by making it more unsafe.

I voted yes. I am a health care worker and I have been vaccinated. One of my colleagues refused it but because he felt hes young and healthy enough to chance it. Nevermind the immunocompromised patients we treat I guess :/

Mandatory vaccine feels wrong because we're so used to it being a choice but I think covid is a bit of an exceptional circumstance where special measures may be needed.

@Tealightsandd

substandard care, while increasing home owners profits, delivered by poorly trained, regarded and paid care workers, and no one giving a shit because they've banged their drum.

It shouldn't be one form of unsafe care versus another. None of this is ok. Care has been shit for years and the sector desperately needs sorting out (personally I'd prefer Dignitas for myself but that choice is hard on families and unaffordable to many).

However, adding an additional layer of shit unsafe care to already shit unsafe care isn't going to help. You don't improve care by making it more unsafe.

Or that this is easier to solve because care workers are basically considered the dregs of the employment world, treated, trained and paid as such, and it's easy to whip up a frenzy against them?

Not going to cost any money and the blame is shifted squarely onto someone else, not a system that has failed in it's duty of care for years, quite blatantly and got away with it.

But oh well, us care workers have had our little clap, been patted on the head and we should be grateful.
People up in arms about care workers refusing (again, I'd like to see actual figures on refusal over not vaccinated because they haven't been able to yet for example) on the grounds of duty of care need to realise that a covid vaccination for staff isn't going to miraculously ensure safety, a full plan around infection control will, and mandatory Vaccination may well cause a decline in the care already on offer.
But everyone will be vaccinated so it'll all be good, you can all go back to your lives thinking you've told us care workers about our duty of care, and back to ignoring everything else.

What heroes.

Honestly, I'm vaccinated, but the attitudes I'm seeing towards care staff are so demoralising, it makes me want to quit.

I'm a HCP and have been vaccinated. I would highly recommend getting vaccinated. However some staff do have doubts about the covid vaccination: we should be engaging and encouraging, rather than forcing. We run the risk of alienating staff and losing them, at a time when we can ill afford it.

Yes, some vaccinations were mandatory prior to starting, but staff knew about that prior. Changing the terms of someone's employment unilaterally once they have started is not a way to help with workforce morale.

It's definitely not alright to treat care workers as the dregs, no. That is a separate - but equally important - issue to vaccine refusal. Both need to be tackled.

It's not an either or situation. Well at least, it shouldn't be. It's unsafe care when a significant proportion are unvaccinated, but it's also unsafe care when it's a demoralised poorly paid badly treated worker who probably doesn't want to be there and is only doing the job to avoid jobcentre sanctions. I wouldn't want my loved ones under that 'care', nor would I want it for myself.

I don’t believe any healthcare worker should be forced to have the Covid vaccine against their will, or be threatened with the loss of their job role if they don’t have the vaccine. It’s just not ethically right.

My friend has cancer. Medically advised not to have the vaccine. She should not have to worry at her hospital appointments that she is at risk from those caring for her and giving her treatment.