How can supposedly intelligent medical professionals consider NOT having vaccinations? A friend caught Covid in hospital over Christmas. It was very worrying, as she is in her 80s.
She’d had all her vaccines and had kept away from other people for the past two years. Despite this, she caught the virus under the watch of people supposed to be caring for her.
Andrew Clubb
I am confused as to why seemingly intelligent NHS staff object to Covid vaccinations.
I am 70 and have known people forced to wear leg callipers after contracting polio. These anti-jab people probably haven’t had to deal with that disease. Why? Because of the polio vaccination. The same applies to flu.
When I was young, if you caught it you were extremely ill for two weeks. Now, if you’ve had a vaccine, you’re OK.
Christine Kyle
I agree: no jab, no job. I worked as a nurse for 40 years and had to have my immunisations up to date at all times. You have to have a yellow fever jab to visit certain parts of the world, and a whole list of them for some countries. What’s the difference?
Susan Gaskin
When I needed treatment at my local hospital during the pandemic, I had to be tested for Covid.
I had absolutely no issue with this. I would hate to infect our treasured NHS staff and, equally, I would not expect to catch it from them.
How can doctors expect the public to have faith in them if they have such little regard for us?
John Miller
As a nurse with more than 40 years’ experience, I am disgusted by healthcare staff refusing vaccination. We signed up to care for sick patients. If you don’t want to be vaccinated, you should consider a different career.
Sandra Irvine
I am 80 years old and have undergone two procedures in hospital in the past six months. I would have been extremely unhappy if any of the NHS staff treating me had refused Covid vaccinations. In fact, had I known this, I might well have refused to go ahead with the surgery
Kenneth Chivers
I have leukaemia and have to go to hospital for regular blood tests. It now feels as if I am playing Russian roulette every time I go, wondering if the nurse taking my blood has been vaccinated. I would have thought it was their moral duty.
Paul Barden
Every patient should have the right to request a fully vaccinated NHS worker. I am immunosuppressed and have had four Covid vaccinations to try to keep myself safe. So why do doctors who refuse the jab think their human rights are more important than mine?
Brenda Smith
Reports of unvaccinated patients in hospital with Covid begging for the vaccine speak for themselves. It is time these people realise how they are viewed by many of the vaccinated: ignorant, selfish, pathetic and attention-seeking.
Perhaps they feel they are heroes to a cause, perhaps it makes them feel important in their otherwise unremarkable lives. They are free to choose not to be vaccinated, and I and many others are free to judge them for that stance.
Andras Llabmek
I recently went into hospital for a small procedure, and asked the nurse tending to me if she was vaccinated against Covid. She replied: ‘That is confidential information which I cannot share.’ I took that to mean no.
From that moment on, I felt extremely vulnerable. All NHS staff should be vaccinated. Surely they entered the profession to care for others and not cause harm?
Incidentally, I am a former nurse, and I remember how, in the early 1970s, we were all mandated to have the smallpox vaccine. We endured terrible side effects, but turned up for work and got on with the job nonetheless.
Anonymous
As a retired occupational therapist, I remember thinking it was quite extraordinary when colleagues of mine refused to have the influenza vaccine. They were not only denying themselves protection from potentially serious illness, but patients too.
I recently had open-heart surgery and often have to attend check-ups at hospital clinics. I am appalled to think I could be at risk because of unvaccinated staff.
Diana Holland
I recently retired from the NHS after 24 years working in hospital theatres. During Covid’s first wave, along with 90 of my colleagues, I was redeployed to work in intensive care and saw the devastation caused at first hand.
We all prayed for a vaccine to be made as quickly as possible. And now we have several that work, it beggars belief that former colleagues are using the excuse that it is ‘unsafe’ not to be jabbed.
If they somehow manage to keep their jobs, I hope that they spare a thought for patients who are now in the care of someone who could easily pass the virus on to them.
Angela Johnson
The thought of being treated by an unvaccinated health worker fills me with anger.
I am a carer for my husband who has Parkinson’s, a blood condition and other illnesses, so have been self-isolating since March 2020.
I’ve placed a notice on my front door: ‘If you’re not vaccinated, you’re not allowed in this house.’
I should have the freedom to choose a vaccinated health worker.
Annie Clift
I’m a former nurse, and I could not have lived with the knowledge that I was putting my patients at risk – and maybe even killing them – by refusing the jab.
It is one thing exercising personal choice, but don’t patients also have a right to feel and be safe?
Allison Nightingale
It’s illegal to smoke in restaurants, to protect other people from cancer-causing secondhand smoke.
Well, I don’t want to run the risk of catching secondhand Covid.
And at least with smoke you notice it and can walk away – Covid is invisible.
These people are going against the Hippocratic Oath and are a disgrace to their profession.
David Allen
I appreciate that lay people may get persuaded by anti-vax conspiracy theories, but I cannot understand why medical professionals are taken in by it.
They talk about their freedom to stay unvaccinated, but they must understand that freedom of choice has consequences.
Anonymous
Once you accept a working role in an environment where you are exposed to others who are vulnerable to infections, you have a duty to protect yourself – and therefore the patients – from infections. If vaccines help reduce the risk of infections in patients, staff must be vaccinated.
As long as the vaccine is safe, I see no reason for anyone to refuse it.
Linda Dease
All NHS staff who come into contact with patients should be vaccinated against Covid.
My daughter-in-law and two grandchildren work in the care system, looking after adults with learning disabilities. All of them had to be vaccinated against Covid-19 or face losing their jobs. They love their jobs, so taking the vaccine was never a problem.
Anne Gage