@Bluntness100
Maverick no one is disputing that care workers did a fantastic job. Making vaccinations compulsory is not some form of punishment for them. .
It is simply about protecting the residents. You cannot have on average 20 percent of staff in a care home unvaccinated against something so transmissible and with such a high fatality rate in the vulnerable. Their lives are at risk. Much more so than their carers. And we need to protect the weak in our society.
Yes we need to take other measures. Yes no one likes a pandemic, illness and death. No one wants this to have occurred, our economy decimated, our population needing vaccines like this. But that’s where we are, the pandemic happened, and we are dealing with a virus that kills
It’s not about how well care workers did their jobs. It is not about attributing blame. It is not some sort of punishment to vaccinate them. It is recognising the proven risks and mitigating those risks, protecting the residents as much as possible from contracting Covid.
Bluntness, if it's not about blame, then why comments like yours about the government having to step in because care homes can't be trusted?
That's the whole attitude, in a nutshell, that's the issue.
That care workers are losing trust over, losing trust in the government and society. The attitude that's making me think I'm better off back out of the job I love quite honestly.
Less than 25% of care workers haven't been vaccinated, with a vaccine that didn't exist a few months ago. There hasn't even been time to fully vaccinate the residents and it to be offered to all care staff, I know this because the area I work in are still waiting for their second dose, NHS staff locally are just starting to have their second doses now.
No one can have the vax until 4 weeks after a positive test, so they are done elsewhere, at different times. They're not recorded as being done through their employer.
As I said in a pp in my place, 3 members of staff not vaccinated at the time everyone was done. But NO ONE REFUSED, 2 are still waiting for their first vaccination because they were within a 4 week window of having covid.
So how can there be any justification, when people haven't even had the opportunity yet to have the vaccine, never mind refuse it, for introducing a law of no jab no job? Why such a heavy handed approach for something that we don't even know it's a problem yet?
You can make this law tomorrow, but it won't mean that people within a 4 week timeframe can be vaccinated, or mean the very minute they go over that timeframe they'll be offered an appointment and vaccinated immediately.
They're just being reported as unvaccinated Vs vaccinated and then without knowing why, assumptions that that is entirely because of refusal are being made, and people like you are joining in with that, and accusing any unvaccinated care workers of being selfish and not protecting the vulnerable people they work with and should be out of a job, without thinking about the reasons why, you're just saying it doesn't matter why.
But how can anyone refuse something that they've been told they're not eligible for for 4 weeks, and then not offered anyway until there's a space?
Where's Matt Hancock's plan to tackle that then? Why's that not being mentioned at all as a reason why care workers at the moment might not be vaccinated? If it's all about protecting the vulnerable, why isn't this being addressed urgently? Why only address the refusals, for which we don't have accurate figures for anyway?
Why no approach at all to things that we do know are a problem, but can't be traced back to care staff, but rather bad policies and profit making, it's all about protecting the vulnerable isn't it? So where's the urgency about that? Is it less urgent because it costs money and because there isn't an easy target to blame?
When you're talking about responsibility and trust, it is about how well care workers, and the government have handled this, this is why people like me feel like trust is being eroded.
We were asked to step up, we did. Now we've been asked to again, and before we've even addressed the reasons why some care workers aren't vaccinated yet, the figure of less than 25% of workers being unvaccinated is being used as a justification for legislation, and calling any care worker who is unvaccinated selfish and failing in their duty of care.
Once it is guaranteed that all care workers have been offered the vaccine, and have been able to take it, and that non vaccination is absolutely down to refusal, is the time to address it, not before the vaccination programme is even close to being at that stage.
This will cause people to leave the job, not because of the vaccine itself, though I've no doubt that some will for personal reasons, but more because of how this has all been presented to demonise care workers who have done everything, within their very limited power, to protect the people they care for.
The rot in care comes from the very top, but as usual, the bottom level are the only ones people are interested in making changes too. And while that attitude persists, on a wider scale, nothing will change for the people who actually matter in this - the people receiving the care.