Patrick Christys: We can’t afford to sack unvaccinated NHS staff

We can’t afford to sack unvaccinated NHS staff.

By March 31st a whopping 6% of the NHS workforce will be dismissed, that amounts to around 80,000 people.

All frontline staff are required to have both doses of the Covid jab by April 1, meaning that by February 3 the first jab must have been given.

Ok, maybe you think that these people should just get the Covid vaccine, maybe you think that they’re silly for not doing so. How do you feel about being desperately ill and there not being someone available to treat you?

I find it amazing that people who didn’t mind being treated by an unvaccinated doctor at the start, and at the very height, of this pandemic, all of a sudden now think they pose a huge risk.

If you think about it, anyone who has spent the last 18 months working in a hospital has probably had Covid at least twice. They’ve likely got antibodies seeping out of every pore.

And even if they had the jab, they could still get Covid and pass it on to you.

Isn’t it astonishing how many people have a blue heart in their Twitter bio, how many of the same people went outside and clapped for our NHS staff, who demanded better pay for nurses, who thought our medical professionals were ‘the unsung heroes’…are now absolutely fine with them being sacked for not getting the Covid vaccine.

There’s a bit of hypocrisy there isn’t there?

Tens of thousands of NHS workers were clapped, and now they’ll be sacked.

Look, I completely understand if you think they should just get the jab, but is that the be all and end all?

Isn’t it amazing that the same people who are telling us that the NHS is at breaking point, it’s on its knees, it’s in crisis, are also demanding that these dangerous vaccine refuseniks lose their jobs?

Well, I’m sorry, but you can’t have it both ways.

You can’t keep complaining about there being an NHS staff shortage – ‘we couldn’t fill the Nightingale hospitals because we didn’t have enough staff’, ‘We haven’t got enough nurses because we don’t pay them enough’, ‘since Brexit nobody wants to come here and work in our beloved NHS…’

And then say that you’re perfectly happy with 80,000 NHS workers being sacked.

The chances are that if someone has not yet had the Covid jab, especially someone who works in the NHS, then they’re not going to get it. You might think they’ve made the wrong decision, fair enough, but it’s bodily autonomy at the end of the day.

The NHS waiting list is set to hit 12m by 2025, people are already dying in ambulances outside hospitals because there isn’t room for them inside or the amount of staff needed to treat them, in some cases people are being told to not call an ambulance, rather they should book a taxi. We have a care home staff shortage, we have a recruitment crisis in the NHS.

Can we, as a nation, really afford to just ditch 80,000 NHS workers? And people will say – well, they’re not all doctors and nurses. Yes, fine, that’s true. But if there isn’t a cleaner on a ward, or a receptionist, etc…then that’s still an issue.

If I was sick, I personally couldn’t care less about the vaccine status of the person making me better. For people who think those NHS staff who haven’t had the jab are selfish, I’d ask this: How selfish are you? You want them sacked, you want there to be fewer doctors and nurses, so when somebody else’s relative gets ill, they might not be able to get treatment.

That’s pretty selfish if you ask me.