Mandatory Covid vaccine

[Aldilogue]

Hello all.
I'm a nurse in regional NSW. Where I live we have not had a Covid case for 500 days. I work in a private hospital on a surgical ward ( all elective surgeries) mainly orthopaedic surgery but also gastric sleeves, urinary, hysterectomies and sone medical patients as the public hospital is full and we get some overflow.
Our government has released a public health order stating all healthcare workers who work in NSW need to have at least once dose of AstraZeneca or Pfizer before September 30. If you do not you "will be excluded from the workplace".
I'm interested in opinions as I know it's not mandatory in the Uk.

It’s so interesting that my body my choice has just drifted away

@Porcupineintherough

Good job you hardly ever find elderly people or those with suppressed immune systems in a healthcare setting then isnt it.

Written in response to -

“hardly very survivable”

and

“ That's pretty much noone in the unvaccinated classroom, where it's left to spread, unchecked. That's only 20 pupils in my DCs school.”

So not solely talking about healthcare settings.

I think this is outrageous! I'm double vaxxed and would have no issue with being treated by someone who is unvaccinated. My vaccination protects me. Their non-vaccination impacts them not me. My body my choice. Their body their choice.

I think it's reasonable for healthcare workers and care home workers, because it is the same as Hep B etc being mandatory. If someone doesn't trust modern medicine, then they may not be best suited for a role in healthcare, and so few healthcare workers have refused that few are affected. I don't think it's fair for care workers and not healthcare workers to be required to be vaccinated, which is the case in the UK. It's clear from studies that care home workers were more likely to infect others, especially moving between homes, while healthcare workers are relatively less likely, but the disparity doesn't appear fair. Much of that may be PPE capability, or anecdotally some few care home workers who are particularly lax. If there was an option for an unvaccinated care home / hospital in each region that could be opted for by staff and patients then that would be ideal to give everyone a choice, but the real life practical situation is that unwell patients have no choice and yet are particularly vulnerable.

I think its all very well to say that you can seek alternate employment but the fact is that when HCPs trained and gained their degrees this wasn't a condition of their employment.

Had it been clear that I should need to have regular covid vaccines, mandatory boosters and influenza vaccines every year I would have chosen a different career entirely.

I have had one course of HepB in 2007 and nothing further since then. It has never been a condition of my employment to have further vaccines, until now.

I doubt this will extend to the NHS any time soon in any case. The GMC aren't keen.

The majority of these responses are horrifying to me.

‘Just get another job’ - how easy is that really? How fair is it to force someone out of their job for not agreeing to a medical intervention on their own body? - and no it’s not the same as vaccinations which are pre-requisites for training or taking up a post; you agree to those conditions when you start the job; it’s different to have it thrust upon you.

What would keep patients safe is if they didn’t come into contact with HCPs who have the virus - you can get the virus regardless of your vaccination status. You can be symptomatic, be hospitalised and die even if you are vaccinated. The fact you are in a group which is less likely to have all these things happen does not mean you are no risk to patients, and the fact you are unvaccinated does not mean you are automatically a risk to patients. Very frequent testing would seem much more appropriate.

@ZednotZee

I think its all very well to say that you can seek alternate employment but the fact is that when HCPs trained and gained their degrees this wasn't a condition of their employment.

Had it been clear that I should need to have regular covid vaccines, mandatory boosters and influenza vaccines every year I would have chosen a different career entirely.

I have had one course of HepB in 2007 and nothing further since then. It has never been a condition of my employment to have further vaccines, until now.

I doubt this will extend to the NHS any time soon in any case. The GMC aren't keen.

Was that not one of the arguments for the mandatory conditions only to be extended to care workers in the UK?

It does not require specific training/A levels/degrees or other time/cost intensive investments in career planning, unlike being a nurse or a doctor.

One fifth of nurses work outside of the NHS, largely in nursing home settings.

I am a nursing home manager, soon to leave the sector due to the vaccine mandation.

@ZednotZee

One fifth of nurses work outside of the NHS, largely in nursing home settings.

I am a nursing home manager, soon to leave the sector due to the vaccine mandation.

But presumably a nurse who was working in a care setting would have the choice to either get vaccinated and stay in care work or move back to the NHS as a nurse practitioner or hospital nurse?

So wouldn't simply be a case of get vaccinated or lose your job.

@PainInMyBum Thankyou, the most sensible post i have seen for a while. Why dont people get this?

@Lostinacloud I can’t follow your line of thinking now.

You are are ok with mandatory tested vaccines like hep B for healthcare staff but not newer ones, because children could be next?

I don’t think anyone should be pressured however increasingly I find those (I know personally) who are holding back from vaccination for covid are very focused on emphasising the unknowns around vaccines and yet downplaying or even dismissing concerns around natural infection, including minimising the % of deaths. If they had someone in their family who died I sense this perspective would immediately alter. I have also observed…If someone is seriously ill: it’s because they are fat or unhealthy or old or were on their way out anyway and sort of doesn’t count. Or it must be because…they had the jab/s! However at the same time they are the opposite when hearing someone has a bad reaction to the vaccine this is some kind of wicked travesty. There is a lot of critical thinking amongst these ones but it seems narrow and one sided.

There’s so much we do not know about the illness, why more men than women die, why certain ethnicities are badly affected why so many more women seem to have long covid and it’s very origin. At some point one hopes this will be understood, however at this juncture we are in the middle of a worldwide pandemic and many like the OP are quite exposed and in contact with lots of people themselves. Maybe they want to get as fit as they can and take their chances, that’s increasingly difficult to understand if their area is ‘in a wave’ but that should be their right.

No, but I have worked in the sector for a decade and have specific social care management qualifications which are now defunct as I move to another sector as they are non transferable.

Not to mention the 10K pay cut, because that is admittedly my choice to absorb.

Even if I was happy to have the vaccine at this stage I would be leaving in purely ideological and moral grounds.
The government has no grounds to mandate this for social care when the most vulnerable patients with the longest possible life span are cared for overwhelmingly within the NHS.

Social care are low hanging fruit. As you stated yourself the public peris that we are all unskilled and do not have a career per se within the sector.
Basically we should be grateful to have any job at all, get back in our box and get back to wiping backsides...

Nobody will fight our corner.

So I'm voting with my feet whilst being cognisant of my privilege to have the means to do so.
I will not be a part of coercing staff in to something which they do not believe to be in their best interests.
Carers are not a lesser life form.

Oh, and my MP agrees incidentally.

public perception is that

Also I have never worked in a 'care setting'

I have always worked within a nursing home since I left the NHS/pharma nursing.

Clue's in the name.

The media won't refer to nursing homes though, because that may just give the public pause for thought.

@ZednotZee

No, but I have worked in the sector for a decade and have specific social care management qualifications which are now defunct as I move to another sector as they are non transferable.

Not to mention the 10K pay cut, because that is admittedly my choice to absorb.

Even if I was happy to have the vaccine at this stage I would be leaving in purely ideological and moral grounds.
The government has no grounds to mandate this for social care when the most vulnerable patients with the longest possible life span are cared for overwhelmingly within the NHS.

Social care are low hanging fruit. As you stated yourself the public peris that we are all unskilled and do not have a career per se within the sector.
Basically we should be grateful to have any job at all, get back in our box and get back to wiping backsides...

Nobody will fight our corner.

So I'm voting with my feet whilst being cognisant of my privilege to have the means to do so.
I will not be a part of coercing staff in to something which they do not believe to be in their best interests.
Carers are not a lesser life form.

Oh, and my MP agrees incidentally.

@ZednotZee

No of course - and your specific situation of being someone who specifically works in a care home but is not a care worker, and so has invested significant time in training, qualifications, and other costs into wanting to do this as a career, I really really sympathise with.

Do you have much patient contact in your role? And is it not possible to transfer into an NHS based role with similar pay?

As you stated yourself the public peris that we are all unskilled and do not have a career per se within the sector.
To be clear - I stated this specifically for care workers, not those with other roles within the care sector. I pointed out the example of nurses in care homes who presumably would have the choice to move back to the NHS and work as nurse practitioners or hospital nurses.

I have significantly less patient contact than any NHS nurse who has not been mandated to have a covid vaccine.

However this is immaterial as the mandate is not predicated upon saving lives but upon pushing this particular envelope.

I will have absolutely no part in supporting it. As a manager the expectation is that I do so.

Unfortunately my management qualification is specific to social care, where I had chosen to base my career until now.

I am resigned to it at this point, I have been assured that there are no plans to mandate the vaccine for my new role, which ultimately speaks volumes.
The government don't want the NHS to crumble, not just yet...

As for pay, well you would probably be surprised to learn that nurses in social care out earn NHS staff by about 5K per annum at an equivalent level.

Of course there is no sick pay or mat pay and the pension is shit but annual salary is very, very good. Especially at a management level.

And nurses don't work in care homes.

They work in nursing homes.

@ZednotZee

And nurses don't work in care homes.

They work in nursing homes.

Apologies for getting this wrong

I was always told that the terms were exchangeable, with the only difference being a nurse has to be on site in a nursing home and this isn't a pre-requisite for a care home.

I didn't realise nurses were not able to work in care homes at all.

Thats ok. To be fair the media seem to want the two to be interchangeable in the minds of the public.

Residents in a nursing home are deemed to require nurses to prescribe and oversee their nursing care.

Care homes do not provide nursing care, so one is indeed a care setting and the other a nursing setting.

@Lostinacloud

Well that’s the other thing I don’t understand. If you or your elderly family member has been vaccinated then what possible danger is an unvaccinated person to you or them? In the first instance, not all unvaccinated people have permanent covid and number 2, it will be them who potentially falls unwell, you or your elderly relative is protected by the vaccine. It makes no sense to me and I wish people would get some of their critical thinking and common sense back and not just absorb everything blasted out by the BBC.

This nurse quite possibly works in an area that has an indigenous population. This changes things significantly. Our indigenous are very susceptible to COVID, and if the Australian Government are doing their best to keep the infection away from their communities. This requires a different approach culturally for vaccination purposes - and they do require vaccination - and so, going into the future, certainly their medical staff would need to fully vaccinated as a prerequisite to protect the community and its people. It's a complex cultural situation that I'm not certain UK people can comment on.

Private health care is very expensive and not really a luxury for the indigenous population.
Most indigenous people go to the local clinic run by indigenous health staff because they are who they trust. There is a massive distrust of white man medicine and government and before anyone tells me I'm wrong I know what I'm talking about
Indigenous studies are a huge part of our degree and it's also where I live. Big divide between rich and poor. I've gone on to do extra studies in this area.
Any way, again, this is about pro choice not about the actual vaccine.
And to the poster who said it wasn't an issue at the start of their degrees is spot on.
Covid wasn't even on the radar.
The compulsory vaccines have been around for years so the level of efficacy and data is apparent.
Just got the record I'm vaccinated which actually isn't the issue so what about my colleagues, do I just think " oh we'll get stuffed get another job" like they are nothing and the work they've done is worth nothing. Nurse get treated like shit someone has to care!

@bumbleymummy

The alternative is to prove that you have had a negative LFT within the last three days. You have to pay for an LFT, so refusing the vaccine can get expensive quickly.

How awful. So freedom of choice is only possibly if you can afford it?

Why should my taxes pay for your freedom of choice when you get ill and cost $$& in ICU and put many more lives at risk? What about my freedom of choice not to pay for you?

@Aldilogue

Private health care is very expensive and not really a luxury for the indigenous population. Most indigenous people go to the local clinic run by indigenous health staff because they are who they trust. There is a massive distrust of white man medicine and government and before anyone tells me I'm wrong I know what I'm talking about Indigenous studies are a huge part of our degree and it's also where I live. Big divide between rich and poor. I've gone on to do extra studies in this area. Any way, again, this is about pro choice not about the actual vaccine. And to the poster who said it wasn't an issue at the start of their degrees is spot on. Covid wasn't even on the radar. The compulsory vaccines have been around for years so the level of efficacy and data is apparent. Just got the record I'm vaccinated which actually isn't the issue so what about my colleagues, do I just think " oh we'll get stuffed get another job" like they are nothing and the work they've done is worth nothing. Nurse get treated like shit someone has to care!

At this time, I don't know that you can separate one facility from another on the basis that certain populations use them and not others. It's a fallacy to believe that Covid wouldn't affect - and I'm taking your phrase here - the 'richer' population, and so it would be fine for some staff to choose to remain unvaccinated.

Even if so, my original point remains: to have unvaccinated healthcare staff in a community with an indigenous population - even if they attend their own facility and not yours - is incredibly risky. If you're so knowledgeable, you'd be aware of this.

I think patients should have the right to request that all staff who enter the room are vaccinated. Depending on how many patients make such a request, there might not be much work available for unvaccinated staff.