Frances Ryan is correct in focusing on the potential risks to vulnerable patients from unvaccinated NHS staff (Mandatory Covid jabs shouldn’t be controversial – NHS staff have a duty to do no harm, 10 November), but there is another, equally compelling argument why unvaccinated staff should not be employed by the NHS.
Vaccinations are a vital part of the NHS strategy to contain the spread of a debilitating, and sometimes deadly, virus. To refuse to be vaccinated (hiding behind the more reasonable sounding “exercising my freedom of choice”) is effectively joining the anti-vaxxers, who use the same arguments as those by the NHS vaccine refusers (along the lines of “it’s untested”, “my own immune system works perfectly well”, or “this is the state telling me what to do”).
It seems extremely hypocritical of people to want to be employed and paid by the NHS, yet are happy to actively subvert a crucial plank of dealing with Covid. People are of course allowed their own views about vaccinations, but not then to treat them as more important or valid than those advocated by their employer. A simple question would be, if a patient asked for your advice about getting vaccinated, would you offer the NHS guidance or would you give your own “personal choice” advice that it is entirely optional? If the former, it would be a gross hypocrisy to refuse a jab; if the latter, it would be a betrayal of the NHS’s fight against Covid.
Chris Talbot
Hastings, East Sussex
• After the debacle when committed and experienced carers must either have the vaccine or face losing their job, 1 April 2022 is the date (very apposite) when NHS staff might have to leave. Thousands may potentially have to walk away from the career they love. Is this the final attempt to destroy an already damaged NHS?
Successive governments have chipped away at the service for decades, reducing it to being barely able to cope with normal demand, never mind winter pressures and Covid. In my career as a nurse and nurse lecturer, I have seen bed numbers reduced, community hospitals closed and numbers of people in training across all professions decimated, with understaffing being the norm. When the NHS does become untenable, is that the point at which it will be wholly sold off to the private sector?
If the vaccine rollout has been such a success, why are people who choose not to be vaccinated treated like pariahs? When the NHS is sold off, will our taxes be reduced? Of course not. The previously most efficient and cost-effective health service in the world is not, and never has been, safe in Conservative hands.
Karen Jacob
Retired nurse/nurse lecturer, Okehampton, Devon
• Why does the discussion of mandatory vaccines always revolve around the individual’s rights? All rights, by definition, come with responsibilities and we seem to have forgotten, as a nation, that they are two-sided. We are equally responsible to ourselves and to others. In this pandemic, it is incumbent upon us to practise both social and personal responsibility in our actions, and that will require compromise.
Brian Lawrence
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
• It seems that health services in Wales and Scotland can get by without sacking unvaccinated staff, but not in England. I think an accurate reaction to the need to protect people is to push vaccination. However, do I want to extend to my employer (the NHS) that has treated so many people so badly over a decade the right to arbitrary control of my body? I think not. So let them find a way other than compulsion. If they won’t, I think NHS staff should resist as a point of principle, even though I myself was glad to queue for a jab.
Ben Ashford
Shrewsbury, Shropshire
• If healthcare workers don’t have confidence in medical science, why are they working for the NHS?
Dr Simon Roberts
Associate professor of public and social policy, Nottingham University
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