French Scientific Counsil "reserved" about reintegrating non-vaccinated caregivers

In its most recent opinion, published on Wednesday, July 20th, the Council stressed that “the vast majority of caregivers in the various sectors have been vaccinated” and that the numbers of suspended caregivers “remain limited”, even if they are “probably a slightly higher due to the confidential nature of this statement”.

Since September 2021, health care workers must have had at least one Covid-19 vaccination. If they do not want to receive a vaccine, they face a suspension without pay. For doctors and pharmacists, 75 out of the 85,000 in practice would have been suspended. For nurses, the number would be 950 out of 240,000. This reports the Catholic French daily La Croix.

Fragile

According to the authority, “a carer must favour all the gestures and procedures so as not to contaminate the often fragile patients whom he takes care of and to limit the occurrence of clusters”, and “the notion of exemplarity and values associated with care remains essential for the majority of caregivers”.

In addition, the Council observes, “the reintegration of non-vaccinated caregivers into hospital teams will probably not have an impact on improving hospital organization”, given the limited number of people concerned, but “may, on the contrary, raise problems of rejection within the teams”. This reports French daily Le Figaro.

After asserting in the National Assembly at the beginning of July that the reintegration of unvaccinated caregivers was still “not relevant”, the Minister of Health announced last week in the Senate the referral of several scientific bodies to shed light on an upcoming decision.