Queensland to close legal loophole excluding private sector aged care workers from vaccine mandate

Queensland is set to slam shut a loophole that will force private sector aged care workers to get the Covid-19 vaccine or face being out of a job.

A legal loophole that threatened to force unvaccinated Queensland public aged care staff out of a job while allowing workers in the private sector to skip the Covid-19 jab will be fixed the state’s top doctor has promised.

But the odds of getting a Covid-19 jab into every aged care worker in Queensland by mid-September are diminishing by the day, with more than half yet to be vaccinated with just five weeks to go.

Chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young says she will close a legal loophole excluding aged care workers in the private sector from mandatory Covid vaccinations. Picture: Tara Croser.

National cabinet in June agreed to make the Covid-19 vaccination mandatory for aged care workers, with states expected to enact public health orders to ensure no staff members without a valid excuse could work without a jab from September 17.

But under chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young’s existing public health order, enacted on July 23, the jab is compulsory only for Queensland Health aged care workers.

This means staff in private facilities, which is 90 per cent of the Queensland’s aged care capacity, could legally go on working unvaccinated once the jab deadline hit.

Queensland Health, following questions from the Courier-Mail, confirmed Dr Young planned to update her orders to “encompass all aged care workers” by September 17.

Under the existing order, public aged care staff who don’t have at least one Covid-19 jab by September 16 and two doses by October 31 will no longer be allowed to work in their facilities and will instead be “temporarily deployed” elsewhere.

This includes staff who can’t get vaccinated for medical reasons or because of a shortage of jabs.

Aged care workers have until October 31 to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

How that would work in practice remains to be seen, with new data revealing more than 27,000 aged care staff in Queensland, or 53 per cent of the workforce, had yet to receive even one jab as of August 10.

Only 29 per cent of the sector in the state had been fully vaccinated.

Leading Aged Services Australia chief executive Sean Rooney said the pace of vaccination of staff had picked up but he also indicated the peak body was working with the government to address the sector’s anxiety about what happens if staff are unvaccinated by the deadline.

Health Minister Greg Hunt has in recent days said the government, along with aged care facilities, had a plan in place to complete the jab program by deadline, including the use of in-reach vaccine clinics.

“There’s access on outreach to GPs, to Commonwealth vaccination clinics and to state clinics, so the opportunity will be there for every aged-care worker,” he said.

In Queensland, aged care workers are being given priority at state-run vaccine clinics.