Covid vaccine deadline for health workers passes but no action taken against unvaccinated

Unvaccinated health workers are still working in Queensland hospitals despite the government’s hardline stance that anyone yet to be jabbed would be forced to take leave from the end of last week. See what they’re doing about it.

Unvaccinated health workers are still working in Queensland hospitals despite the government’s hardline stance that anyone yet to be jabbed would be forced to take leave from the end of last week.

Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said while no unvaccinated health workers were working in any of the state’s five “covid hospitals” the health department was still “working through” what to do with the remaining staff who had not received at least one jab.

“There’s a very small number who aren’t vaccinated, and a lot of them were already on leave, for instance maternity leave or long service leave and of the remaining there’s only a very few and we’re working with each of those people as individuals to see what they reason for not being vaccinated is,” she said.

The Courier-Mail revealed last week that about 11 per cent of Queensland Health’s 90,000 hospital-based workforce remained unvaccinated despite the directive to have at least one dose by Friday.

Dr Young said there were very few acceptable reasons a frontline health worker could have for refusing the mandatory vaccination order.

“So we’re just working through whether these people have one of those conditions. So whether we need to look to redeploy them, or what we need to do, we’re just working that through but it’s a tiny number (of workers),” he said.

People queue up to receive the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine at the newly opened community vaccination hub at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre in Boondall. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

Despite repeatedly being asked how many was a “small number” Dr Young refused to say at Monday’s press conference and said was confident the issue would be worked through quickly.

“We don’t have an outbreak in Queensland today, so we don’t have a risk there at the moment,” she said.

“But we’re working that through so that we’re prepared for when we do end up with an outbreak, but there’s not a rush, we’ve got time to sort it out.”

The Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union and AMAQ have supported the vaccination mandate, declaring it essential to ensuring patient care is protected.However, the Nurses Professional Association Queensland is staunchly opposed, labelling the direction “completely unreasonable”.