As if the mounting Omicron crisis isn’t enough, tens of thousands of NHS workers face losing their jobs.
They join large numbers of care staff, also being sacked for refusing to have a coronavirus injection.
Labour MPs joined with the Tories this week to impose a “no jab – no job” rule in the health service, supporting the Government’s anti-Covid measures.
Was this wise?
An estimated 73,000 NHS staff currently decline inoculation, well down on the 122,000 initially identified, but still too many.
This draconian threat of the sack is scant reward for the loyalty and sacrifice shown by health workers during two years of Covid crisis. More than a thousand lost their lives.
And the manpower-strapped NHS can ill afford to lose so many people while the pandemic rages.
I reluctantly supported the “no jab – no job” rule for care home workers, effective from next March, because they’re in continuous public contact with the elderly and vulnerable.
But the same cannot be true of all 1.5 million employed by the NHS. Laboratory staff, drivers, maintenance workers, managers and myriad others who we do not see and pose no obvious threat to patients.
The rule, opposed by the health unions and some doctors, will be enforced on April 1. It’s not a fool’s joke.
There is time to work out a solution to the problem, if the politicians and NHS top brass really want to. A Tory MP who is a GP suggested daily lateral flow tests for those who can’t, or won’t, have the jab. Some could do non-facing jobs.
It cannot be right that so many workers who have given their all for so long should be sacked, without compensation or redundancy, when they can quite lawfully go to the pub and breathe over everybody.
This cruel inconsistency lies at the heart of the Government’s confused strategy for fighting the Covid war.
Of course, MPs won’t be sacked for refusing to do what they demand of NHS workers. As usual, one rule for the workers and another for the rulers.
Place violent on register
Police chiefs are targeting men with a history of harming women in order to curb misogynist violence.
The force’s own ranks will be monitored for sexist behaviour, following public outrage over the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Metropolitan officer.
But the initiative will go wider, keeping tabs on “high risk” men released from prison, possibly using electronic tags. It should go much further.
We already have a Sex Offenders’ Register to keep track of these criminals. Why not a Violent Offenders’ Register, for those with a record of serious physical harm to others?
It should be open to inspection by social services, employers and others. That would surely put off potentially violent people and persuade offenders to stay out of trouble.
Medical bill
Charlie, 24, and Pringle, nine, two Humbolt penguins, brought Yuletide joy to an Oxfordshire old people’s home.
The birds, native to Peru and Chile, even sat on residents’ laps, all part of the therapy they bring from Heythrop Zoo.
Do p-p-p-pick up a penguin for a t-t-t-tonic, but remember, only three per visitor under current C-C-C-Covid rules!
******
Katie Price avoided Christmas in jail for drink-driving while banned because of a legal loophole.
Katie who?
