DECISION TIME FOR THE UNVACCINATED

THE choice for healthcare workers in the state could not be made clearer – get vaccinated or lose your job. Health Department Secretary Kathrine Morgan-Wicks was blunt in her message on Wednesday: “For those who refuse to vaccinate and do not have an exemption, on 30 October, you will no longer be paid. I will be pursuing termination action on and from 31 October for each and every individual case.”

There are those who will argue that the mandatory requirement to be vaccinated is an assault on an individual’s rights. Yes it is. But that is nothing new. Our rights as individuals are suppressed all the time for the safety of others.

We are not allowed to shoot a gun down the street. We can’t drink and drive. Our right to exceed the speed limit or drive without a seat belt incur penalties. A person can choose to do those things but those choices have consequences. The choice not to be vaccinated has consequences too.

The rights of an individual are important but not when they endanger the health and safety of others. In the case of Tasmania’s health workers, the right of our most vulnerable to not get sick or even die, trumps a conscientious objection to getting a Covid jab.

Of course most of our healthcare workers were among the first to roll up their sleeves for the vaccine. Many are people whose work involves care based on the principles of medical science, so it is simply illogical to not heed the advice of health experts.

There are even more basic reasons than that. If you are a frontline worker and are more likely to encounter Covid cases, your own safety and the safety of those you love depend on you receiving the best protection you can. A vaccine makes you safer.

The Delta variant is a tricky beast and even with the vaccine, those exposed to the virus will face some risk. There’s a sad irony in the fact that people employed by Health who make a conscious choice not to be vaccinated are the most likely to catch Covid and get sick – and need to receive treatment from colleagues they chose to walk away from.

There are more than 16,000 people on the Health Department’s payroll and a lot of them do not have a faceto-face role with patients. Some are caterers, some cleaners and others are maintenance workers. But they too will need to be vaccinated to keep their jobs. It may seem rough, but if they are working in buildings and potentially mixing with frontline workers, they risk being the source of an outbreak.

For those who have simply been slack or who seriously object to having a vaccine, they have less than 10 days to make up their minds.

It’s the right call by the government – no jab, no job. It can’t be clearer.