A 'Registered' Nurse No Longer
Why I decided to surrender my professional nursing registration
A few years ago, when I was working in the organ donation space, my manager circulated a personality type test around our offices. Intended as a bit of fun with the possibility of helping us understand ourselves and one another more deeply, several of us completed it with gusto. On completion, I noted my result; I was considered an ISFJ, or in simpler terms, a ‘Defender’. One of the four ‘Sentinel’ personality types, the result suggested that ‘Defenders’ are quiet, kind, generous, responsible and dedicate themselves to worthy causes. Even the words ‘sentinel’ and ‘defender’ suggest one who looks out for and stands up for others. This exercise may have been a light way to encourage self-reflection for my colleagues and me, but my result resonates even more now in light of recent events.
Yesterday I cried as I let the envelope slip from my grasp into the ‘belly’ of the post box. This was it, there was no turning back. My husband soothed me as the tears continued; reassuring me I had done the right thing. I knew this was true, but I still felt the grief of letting go of my career of the last 14 years. I had been thinking of this for several months, but after many letters to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) about COVID-19 vaccine mandates and broad-scale childhood COVID-19 vaccination without any good-faith response, I knew this was what I personally had to do.
My letters to AHPRA and the NMBA had initially inspired replies saying they had no comment to make on what they claim is simply a Commonwealth Government-led COVID-19 vaccine rollout that they are merely facilitating. Despite responding to these woefully inadequate replies, and writing further once COVID-19 vaccination was recommended for all healthy children and COVID-19 booster doses were mandated (in some jurisdictions), the conversation became distinctly one-sided.
As you’ll see in my third and final (open) letter below, I don’t buy this for a second. This issue is well within the remit of AHPRA and the NMBA and their facilitation is seeing some registered healthcare workers administer doses of COVID-19 vaccine to people who have not consented in a legally and ethically valid manner. Just because the federal government has given healthcare workers indemnity from legal responsibility in the event of a COVID-19 vaccine-induced adverse event, that does not absolve healthcare professionals (nor indeed AHPRA and the NMBA) from their moral and ethical responsibilities to patients who are receiving a COVID-19 vaccine under duress.
Without further ado, below is my open letter to Mr Martin Fletcher (AHPRA CEO), with a ‘carbon copy’ to the Chair of the NMBA Adjunct Professor Veronica Casey (personal contact details have been removed):
Mr Martin Fletcher
Chief Executive Officer
Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency
28th February, 2022
OPEN LETTER
Re: Ongoing Concerns related to COVID-19 Vaccination Mandates & Broad-scale Childhood COVID-19 Vaccination
Dear Mr Fletcher,
This is my third letter to you regarding COVID-19 vaccination mandates and the COVID-19 vaccination recommendation for all healthy children, and it will also be my last. As I mentioned in my initial correspondence, I have been a registered nurse for 14 years during which time I have worked primarily in intensive care. I have also completed post-graduate study in critical care nursing and spent time working in aeromedical retrieval, organ donation and outpatient neurosurgery.
While I remain seriously concerned about our reckless and unscientific insistence on vaccinating all healthy children against COVID-19, for brevity’s sake this letter will focus on COVID-19 vaccination mandates (although many of the points below may also be applied to childhood COVID-19 vaccination). I do not know whether or not you have read my previous letters, but the response I have received from your colleagues on your behalf has been grossly inadequate, to say the least.
I have implored you, and our colleagues at the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, to publicly comment on the unacceptable and unethical nature of COVID-19 vaccination mandates in order to protect members of the Australian public from recognised physical, psychological, social and financial harms, and also to protect the reputation and public standing of my profession (nursing) and other registered health professions. COVID-19 vaccination mandates contravene the protected right to informed consent which is enshrined in the Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights[1] and in medical and nursing codes of conduct and ethics.[2] [3] [4] [5] Failure on the behalf of you and your regulatory colleagues at the various national boards to discern the impropriety of COVID-19 vaccine mandates (particularly in the unforgivably cruel case of individuals who have suffered previous COVID-19 vaccine-induced adverse events) from general recommendations for vaccines more broadly is a clear failure in your duty of care to the Australian community, which is the raison d’être of your organisation.
Sadly, the main point your colleagues invoke in defence of your unacceptable conduct is to say that the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is a Commonwealth Government initiative and one which is not something AHPRA are prepared to comment on. As I said in my previous correspondence, this blatant attempt to evade responsibility in the application of this harmful public health policy, when doctors and nurses are administering thousands (perhaps millions) of doses of COVID-19 vaccine to patients without valid consent, is a shameful indictment on the executive leadership of your organisation. You will not escape your complicity in this unconscionable policy application; when it becomes clear that harm, be it physical, psychological, social and/or financial, has been inflicted on a significant proportion of the Australian public, it will also be clear that you enabled this to occur.
It is with sadness and regret that I must now inform you of my application to have my name removed from the register of practitioners held by AHPRA and the NMBA. I cannot in good conscience continue to be associated with organisations which claim to protect the public while wilfully supporting conduct which egregiously undermines this objective. I have had many wonderful experiences as a registered nurse. I moved to a new city, embarked on specialist post graduate education, forged treasured and lasting friendships, and had the honour of supporting patients and families in their most vulnerable moments. Now I have the honour of acting in accordance with my values and in continuing to stand up for others when they are unable to do so themselves. I’ll always be a nurse in my heart, but I cannot continue in registered practice when to do so would go against everything I believe in.
I hope you will soon come to realise the harm you are allowing to continue unchecked and that you will find your voice and speak up for the people you claim to protect. Until then, you remain an indisputable part of the problem.
Yours sincerely,
Laine Jolly.
CC: A/Prof Veronica Casey, Chair of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia
[1] Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights, Australian Commission on Quality and Safety in Healthcare, 2020
[2] Good medical practice: a code of conduct for doctors in Australia, Australian Medical Board & AHPRA, October 2020
[3] Code of conduct for nurses, Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (under AHPRA), March 2018
[4] (Medical) Code of Ethics (third edition), Australian Medical Association, (revised version published) March 2017
[5] The ICN Code of Ethics for Nurses, International Council of Nurses (adopted by AHPRA for all Australian nurses), December 2021
In summary, I refuse to be ‘regulated’ by agencies which claim to protect the public, but are actually contributing to the harm of some community members (including those at negligible risk from COVID-19). Allowing our governments to suggest they know what is best for us all, so much so as to usurp our human right to bodily autonomy, is a paternalistic medical throwback I thought we had collectively left behind us as modern healthcare professions. I am disgusted that this scenario of state-sanctioned medical coercion has been allowed to unfold with very limited pushback from people who would have previously (and legally, morally and ethically correctly) upheld the right of ALL patients to informed consent. (To be clear, I understand that there are some healthcare professionals working to dismantle this unacceptable government overreach from the inside and I commend them for doing so).
And so this is how my journey as a ‘registered’ nurse ends. While I’m angry, hurt, confused and sad that it has come to this, I am also happy, relieved and resolved in my determination to speak up for myself, and more specifically for others who are being adversely affected by COVID-19 vaccine mandates and aggressive ‘recommendations’ to subject their healthy children to COVID-19 vaccination and who do not have the strength, knowledge, confidence and/or the financial capacity to firmly make their own decisions.
The word ‘nurse’ will always be a part of my personal identity, even without professional registration. Many of the words associated with my ‘Defender’ personality will still apply too, perhaps now more than ever.
A 'Registered' Nurse No Longer
I thought if you invest in yourself by gaining qualications to get a good job you would be secure. Yet here we are, with the stroke of a pen the government takes it all away.
Thank you! For your courage and standing for truth. I am studying to become a nurse (late in life) as I feel I have a lot to give but biding my time til this mandate madness ends so I can practice with integrity and truth. I wish you well and applaud your strength and voice.