Europe
France suspends 3,000 health staff as Europe
targets vaccine refusal
By Matthieu
Protard and Ingrid Melander
PARIS, Sept
16 (Reuters) - Hospitals, care homes and health centres have suspended around
3,000 workers across France for failing to comply with mandatory COVID
vaccination, the government said on Thursday, as countries around Europe weigh
how far to go to combat the pandemic.
While Italy
is set to announce later on Thursday that proof of vaccination or a negative
test will be compulsory for all workers, going further than any other country
in the region, the Netherlands plans a similar step - but only to go to bars or
clubs.
Britain,
meanwhile, says it is highly likely to require front-line health and social care
workers in England to be vaccinated as part of a plan to contain the virus
during winter.
In France,
President Emmanuel Macron's decision in mid-July to require a similar health
pass to go anywhere from restaurants to gyms and museums, and make the jab mandatory
for health workers, has massively increased vaccination take-up.
With the
mandate for workers in hospitals and care homes taking effect on Wednesday, its
very concrete impact - unvaccinated staff forbidden to work - started to be
felt.
According
to local daily Nice Matin, nearly 450 health workers - out of 7,500 - have been
suspended in just one hospital in the city of Nice, in southern France.
The
government, however, shrugged off the impact.
"It
hasn't been chaos, far from it," Health Minister Olivier Veran told French
RTL radio, adding there were 27 million workers in the sector.
There have
been a few cases where it has affected care, he said, like the use of an MRI
being briefly complicated, but most suspended staff work in support roles, limiting
the impact.
"Most
of the suspensions are only temporary ... many have decided to get vaccinated
as they see that the vaccination mandate is a reality," Veran said.
But unions
warn of likely disruptions to care, and just a few absentees in a team is
enough to trigger a crisis, Emmanuel Chignon, a care home manager in Bordeaux
told Reuters this week, pointing to how hard it was to hire staff in the
sector.
"If we
can't replace the carers who leave, the work will fall on the others, and I
fear an unvirtuous circle, with tiredness, exhaustion and an increase in
absenteeism," he said.
MANDATORY
In Italy,
where vaccination for health workers was made mandatory at the end of March,
some have been suspended, but with numbers nowhere near those seen in France.
As of Sept.
16, some 728 doctors in all of Italy had been suspended for failing to be
vaccinated, the Italian doctors' federation said.
Italy is
now set to go much further and announce on Thursday that a "Green
pass" - showing someone has received at least one vaccine dose, tested
negative or recently recovered from the virus - will be mandatory for all
public and private sector workers. Failure to have a Green Pass will result in
workers being suspended and losing their pay. read more
In other
countries, like the Netherlands, opinion polls show a majority of the public
favouring mandatory vaccination for health workers, with the workers themselves
mostly opposed to it, and the government has said it will not take such
measures.
However a
pass showing proof of vaccination or a recent negative coronavirus test is set
to be required there as of Sept 25 to go to bars, restaurants, clubs or
cultural events.
Although
polls have shown that a majority of the Dutch support the measure, the pass is
strongly opposed by the around 30% of the population who have so far refused to
be vaccinated. Critics say the measure is meant to force people to get the jab.
Reporting
by Blandine Henault, Matthieu Protard and Ingrid Melander in Paris, Crispian
Balmer and Francesco Zecchini in Rome, Bart Mejier in Amsterdam; Writing by
Ingrid Melander; Editing by Alex Richardson, William Maclean
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