I was refused a jab – and I’m a key worker
DEMENTIA IS A HUGE CONCERN FOR EX-SCOTLAND STAR HART
I read with interest your article ‘Voters: Make key workers have jab’. I am a serving prison officer and was informed last week that we were now classed as care workers, and therefore entitled to have a Covid vaccination.
I made my appointment and drove to the Lincolnshire Showground, only to be refused a jab at the door as staff had just been informed that they were not to vaccinate police officers or prison officers. I know for a fact that I have not been the only one to be turned away.
I thought it quite amusing that voters want key workers to have the jab, yet I have been turned away at the door.
Name and address supplied
The vaccine should be compulsory for everyone, unless a GP certifies that a health risk exists. The option not to be vaccinated should be removed. Repeated failure to comply should ultimately lead to arrest and forced vaccination.
Tony Nicholson, London
The minute you make the vaccine compulsory is the minute you have lost democracy and the freedom of choice of every person in this country. Once you do one thing that loses that, it will happen with more and more things and before long we will become a dictatorial nation and we will lose all our freedoms.
T. Smith, Poole
It’s shocking how quickly it’s gone from ‘vaccinate the vulnerable and elderly’ to ‘if you refuse a vaccine you should be cast out of society’. Madness.
D. Thomas, London
Why should a key worker be forced to take it? I’m a key worker and I’ve continued to carry out my job throughout this past year, putting myself at risk while others get to work from home or not at all. It should be a personal choice whether or not I have the jab.
L. Miller, Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire
Why would you want an unvaccinated health worker to give you treatment? We need to make this compulsory.
S. Murray, Essex
It’s hardly the ‘nation’s verdict’, when Deltapoll have interviewed just 1,527 people. The trouble with these polls is that the questions are very weighted to provide the answers the pollsters want and are not necessarily reflective of the view of the public at large.
L. Gadsby, Truro
Everyone should have the vaccine. If it helps towards getting back to normality, we should all do our part.
B. Wood, West Midlands
As a key worker, I demand that everybody who says I must have the jab must have had it themselves (I have received it, actually, but that was my choice, not someone else’s to make for me).
K. Smith,
Belfast
Once we start accepting that individuals do not have the power to make decisions about their own body, it’s a very slippery slope.
B. Thompson, Somerset
ACROSS the sporting spectrum, the awareness of concussion and permanent brain damage has been elevated to new levels in recent months. And rightly so, given some of the tragic stories that have come to light.
In October last year, former Scotland and British and Irish Lions star Roy Laidlaw spoke bravely and candidly in an exclusive interview with Sportsmail about how he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
Little more than six weeks later, it emerged that a group of former rugby players were pursuing legal action against the game’s authorities, citing neglect and a failure to protect them from repeated blows to the head.
Among their ranks was Steve Thompson, the former England hooker, who revealed that he can’t remember playing in the 2003 World Cup final having been diagnosed with early-onset dementia.
Former Scotland scrum-half Grayson Hart has now become the latest name to add his voice to the list of players who have expressed concern over the long-term effects of concussion.
Hart announced his retirement from the game last week — and
he is adamant that
I had the mentality that unless you’re in a hospital bed, keep going
more could be done to protect players from knocks to the head.
The 32-year-old admits that he is worried about what the future may hold, saying: ‘I’ve had numerous bashes to the head where you know your cognitive function isn’t right.
‘It’s concerning and I am concerned for the health of my brain and what I put it through.
‘I have moments now where I forget the most simple words, or my memory goes completely blank and I never used to have that. It is concerning.’
Hart recounts one particularly alarming tale where he believes he was knocked out during a game, but returned to the field of play having passed the Head Injury Assessment test.
‘There’s too many to count,’ he continued. ‘I went up for a high ball, landed on my head and I was out for what felt like about ten seconds.
‘I went in for a HIA and passed the test because you just get used to the test.
‘There’s times where you are fully gone but, sometimes, you are quite relaxed and you’re not stressed or anxious so you can answer questions quite well.
‘My learning from my rugby career was that I wish I didn’t feel as much pressure to be available for selection or stay on the field when I wasn’t right.
‘I was concerned about my career — I wanted to be able to do well, keep playing pro rugby.’
While Hart stresses he doesn’t hold anyone to blame for the injuries he picked up during his career, he does believe there’s a culture within the game where players are pushed to breaking point.
‘Rugby was everything to me, so I had the mentality that, unless you’re in the hospital bed, you keep going,’ he added. ‘I’m sure there’s other guys who had potential symptoms who would willingly go off.
‘I felt if I didn’t play I was potentially going to lose my contract, my earnings and the sad reality is that, unless you’re an absolute hot-shot player — which most rugby players are not — the majority of players are replaceable.’
Hart admits to having ‘mixed emotions’ about having decided to hang up his boots.
‘I feel grateful for rugby and what it’s done for my life,’ he said.
‘But, on the flipside, I feel a real sense of freedom because the thing I struggled most with was the feeling that I had to fit a mould. It’s not the setting that encourages you to fully be yourself.
‘I love playing the game and I’ll miss that.’
Despite his health concerns, Hart is thankful for his time in the sport and believes it helped him through one of the most difficult periods of his life.
In 2009, when he was only 21, his father Ian died after being diagnosed with terminal cancer three years earlier. Hart admits he struggled to cope.
‘Our relationship, and our friendship, was based around rugby, so I think that’s one of the reasons why rugby has such a special place in my heart,’ he said.
‘He would cut up the half-time oranges, or he’d give me a breakdown of my performance in the car. He never missed a game.
‘When I lost him, that was a big factor in my perspective on rugby changing. I found it difficult to feel the same way about the game because my No1 (motivation) had been knowing my dad was there watching.
‘When someone passes away, you know they are watching over you, but it was about making him proud because he’d done everything for me to have that opportunity.’
Hart won three caps for Scotland on the 2014 summer tour and picked his debut against Canada in Toronto among his career highlights, as well as the Scotland Sevens’ cup win in the Twickenham leg of the HSBC World Series.
Those are all memories safely tucked away, for now, as Hart looks to a new chapter that will see him further develop Pure Sport CBD, the business he co-founded alongside former team-mate Adam Ashe.
GLASGOW WARRIORS head coach Danny Wilson hailed the resilience shown by his side that had been reduced to 13 men before staging a late rally to win.
They looked in real trouble when they had Sam Johnson and Ollie Smith yellow-carded either side of the break as the Italian outfit took a ten-point lead.
But an important contribution off the bench from replacement centre Nick Grigg, who set up a try for Jamie Dobie then scored himself, turned the Pro14 game around.
‘We were left playing with 13 men yet again for a while, so we keep giving ourselves plenty to do but we hung on in there,’ said Wilson.
‘We were resilient and managed to wear them down to put them away when they were a bit fatigued at the end of the game.
‘Look, it’s a challenge to come here and get a win.’
Things didn’t start well with Glasgow losing flanker Gregor Brown after just four minutes to injury, with Fijian international Leone Nakarawa taking his place.
Paolo Pescetto opened the scoring for the home side, with a penalty two minutes later from Ross Thompson levelling the score.
Glasgow got the first try thanks to Thompson halfway through the first half, which he converted.
The hosts scored two tries in three minutes before the break, with both coming from winger Mattia Bellini. His first came after some patient build-up play that allowed him to score under the posts, with Pescetto putting over the extras.
Johnson saw yellow for a dangerous tackle in the build-up. Poor defending allowed Bellini to go in for his second, with his score converted by Pescetto just before the half-time whistle.
Three minutes after the restart, Glasgow were down to 13 after Smith was sent to the sin bin for a deliberate knock-on. When Tom Gordon was caught offside, Pescetto increased the home side’s lead with a penalty.
Glasgow needed a spark. It came from Dobie. The 19-year-old was on the shoulder of Grigg to take his pass and touch down under the posts. Ian Keatley put over the extras.
Enrico Lucchin was sin-binned for constantly infringing at the ruck and from the next play Tom Gordon crashed over for a try, converted by Keatley.
With eight minutes left, Glasgow scored a fourth try through Grigg, with Keatley adding the extras. SCORERS; ZEBRE: Tries: Bellini (2). Cons: Pescetto (2). Pens: Pescetto (2).
GLASGOW: Tries: Thompson, Dobie, Gordon, Grigg. Cons: Thompson, Keatley (3). Pen: Thompson.