After several months of refusal, caregivers who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 will be able to return to their workplace and return to their service as of today. The Decree authorizing their reinstatement has just been published in the Official Journalthis Sunday, May 14, 2023.
Decided at the end of summer 2021 and implemented in October 2021, the vaccination obligation concerned nearly 2.7 million people, caregivers, but also hospital staff, paramedics, home helpers and people working in nursing homes. According to the High Authority for Health (HAS), 0.3% of hospital workers were affected by the suspension (i.e.: prohibited from working, without pay)or about 4,000 professionals and 2,000 liberals according to Health Insurance.
“It is quite difficult to have the exact figure”said the Minister of Health François Braun, on the set of France Info.
For its part, the High Authority for Health does not question its position on vaccination against Covid-19. “The HAS insists on the fact that the lifting of a vaccination obligation for professionals does not call into question the interest of this vaccination, whether in the professional environment or in the general population.“, indicated the agency in a communicated published on March 30.
How will this reintegration go?
Suspended caregivers have legally the right to resume their duties in the position they occupied. “They must be offered to return to their original position, their original career, a bit as if there had been a parenthesis” added the Minister of Health on France Info. “We are going to make sure that things go as well as possible, or at least as little badly as possible for their reintegration”.
In April, the National Union of Nursing Professionals (SNPI) notably requested that the vaccination obligation be maintained, contrary to what the HAS recommended. “It is not acceptable to entrust the health of patients to professionals who, by refusing vaccination, express a significant distrust of science and evidence-based medicine”, read their press release.
A “marginal” return for Professor Benjamin Davido, infectious disease specialist at the Raymond-Poincaré hospital in Garches, questioned about franceinfo. “These people have not worked for three years and for the most part have changed jobs, changed paths and above all have lost confidence in science, in vaccination and somewhere in the sick. Whether “you consider the vaccine to be nonsense, you have lost this fiber, this very strong link that binds you to the teams, to science and to the caregivers”ends the specialist.
It should be noted that if the pandemic starts again, the government reserves the possibility of again suspending the caregivers concerned.
