Our Health Systems and the Workers Within Them are at Breaking Point
It's time to end COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
This story is from today's (3/6/22) TODAY show on Channel Nine (Australia). While it doesn't take a firm anti- mandate position, it's still fantastic to see a mainstream news outlet cover this issue and question whether mandates should be dropped in the face of the worsening health crisis.
Due to the understandable editing down of everyone's contribution to make the complete story, I want to clarify a couple of things. I was not fired due to the mandates, I resigned a couple of months prior due to burnout and a sense of impending mandates for healthcare workers (specifically/only). I did 'work primarily in the intensive care unit' during my 14 year career, but for the two years prior to my resignation I worked in outpatient neurosurgery. In early 2022, I surrendered my professional nursing registration to AHPRA (the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency) over their gross dereliction of duty regarding COVID-19 vaccine mandates (which means I personally cannot return to work as a nurse, even if/when the mandates are lifted).
Regarding the Victorian Australian Medical Association (AMA) President Dr Roderick McRae's comments (which I concede may also require clarification due to editing), I am (almost) speechless. Unvaccinated staff do not need to work in other areas (of the hospital), because both unvaccinated AND vaccinated staff can be infected with and transmit COVID-19. Many workplaces (including those in health) are already requiring their 'fully vaccinated' staff to regularly test for COVID-19. There is absolutely NO rational reason why unvaccinated staff can't be included in this process and allowed to return to work. If the rapid tests are “ordinary at best” as he asserts, then vaccinated staff aren't safe to work either.
COVID-19 booster doses are not “the first dose related to the omicron variant”. I honestly don't know where to start with this blatant misinformation. Booster doses, like the two doses in the so-called primary course of COVID-19 vaccination, are based on the (now ancient) alpha variant and do sweet FA against the omicron variant. Dr McRae claims the booster offers “enormous protection”, which is not only misinformation, it's complete BS. You may get a moderate level of protection against infection from week two to week eight post booster dose, but after that it rapidly approaches zero protection against infection. IF, as some people claim, it substantially reduces the risk of hospitalisation and/or death (which itself is a debatable claim when applied broadly to all ages and health backgrounds, rather than risk-stratified), that DOES NOT justify COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
In addition, back in late 2020 prior to any COVID-19 vaccine receiving approval in Australia, the AMA released a statement saying “any form of mandatory vaccination is not warranted in relation to COVID-19”. This at a time when the circulating variants were more pathogenic, virtually no one in Australia had infection-induced immunity, and the desperate hope was that a future vaccine would actually provide a reasonable degree of protection against infection and transmission of the virus.
Our healthcare systems have been broken for years, if not decades. Cries for help from people on the front lines have been ignored by both major parties, resulting in burnout and an ongoing loss of highly qualified, skilled and experienced staff. The pandemic has worsened this already existing crisis, and nonsensical mandates are causing even more pressure on the system and those who remain in acute care fields.
PEOPLE ARE DYING! What more will it take for those in power to rescind these unscientific, unjustified (not to mention unethical) rules and let those staff who want to return to work, do so?!
They do not want nurses that use critical thinking skills in practice. Patient advocacy no longer required, either. Just shut up and follow orders. I'm out.
A cynic might say that the powers-that-be don't actually want to fix the broken system.