Hospital, emergency service workers didn’t meet jab deadline

Hundreds of health care workers have been stood down because they were not vaccinated in time for the government mandate.

Hundreds of workers in hospitals and other emergency services have been stood down because they were not vaccinated in time for the government mandate.

It comes as experts warn the state’s health system is under considerable stress from burned out staff, which has been made worse by strain from rising Covid cases.

Essential workers were required to be vaccinated by October 15 under new laws and the Saturday Herald Sun is aware of at least two major hospitals where about 50 staff are refusing to get the jab.

Twice as many workers have also failed to meet the deadline but authorities are confident these people will become vaccinated over coming weeks.

Hundreds of hospital staff and emergency services workers have been stood down for failing to meet the jab deadline. Picture: David Caird

Hundreds of other staff have been stood down across health services in Melbourne’s suburbs.

The numbers represent between 1 per cent or 2 per cent of the workforce and its believed they are spread across multiple areas including cleaners and administration staff.

Victoria Police did not provide a figure on how many staff were unvaccinated, but Ambulance Victoria said about 96 per cent of its employees had received a jab.

The result was similar for the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

“Ambulance Victoria is in contact with the minority of staff who had declined or not declared

their vaccination status by October 15 in accordance with public health directions,” a spokeswoman said.

“We don’t anticipate any impact on our operations.”

Health Minister Martin Foley said he did not believed the mandate would lead to staff

shortages.

“We would certainly be talking several hundreds (of unvaccinated workers),” he said.

“What we will see is all the employers in those organisations having strategies in place to deal

with this.”

Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said the hospitals were at breaking point and the state government needed to detail how many people were out of the system.

Health care workers were also feeling the effects of ‘Covid overload’. Picture: Jody Amiet / AFP.

Royal Australasian College of Physicians president Professor John Wilson said Victoria was dealing with another serious disease known as “Covid overload”.

He said the college had taken a survey of its members and 80 per cent showed signs of burnout.

“The symptoms of the syndrome are tired workers, over worked staff, a lack of resilience and

an inability to treat sick people because of a lack of space,” he said.

“There are many senior medical specialists who will not return to regular practice.

“Covid is an extra load on the system and it is the straw that broke the camels back.”

Prof Wilson said strain on the system mean public patients were being prioritised for elective

surgery over private patients in less urgent categories.

“We are also transferring the workload when we do this (and) we have to make sure we are not doubling it,” he said.

“Our troops need to be rotated into rest and relaxation more frequently and we need to have

better planning for distribution. of stress in the system.”

Prof Wilson said there also needed to be discussions about how pharmacy staff and medical

students could help the health system.

“We are now at that level,” he said.