Specialist doctors suing Queensland Health over vaccine mandate

Two specialist doctors forced to stop working for Queensland Health during the Covid-19 pandemic are suing the state over its continued vaccine mandate for employees in public health.

Dr Sally Johnstone.

Two specialist doctors forced to stop working for Queensland Health during the Covid-19 pandemic are suing the state over its continued vaccine mandate for employees in public health and aged-care facilities.

In a statutory order of review application submitted to Brisbane’s Supreme Court on January 20, Associate Professor Peter Parry and Dr Sally Johnstone claim evidence of vaccine efficacy “does not exist”, and the decision by Queensland Health to establish and maintain vaccine requirements is “an exercise of power that is so unreasonable that no reasonable person could so exercise the power”.

The review, launched against the state and former Queensland Health director-general Dr John Wakefield, called for the September 2021 directive requiring public health employees to be vaccinated against Covid to be revoked, and for the courts to issue a permanent injunction against further vaccine requirements.

Associate Professor Peter Parry.

Dr Parry is a longstanding child and adolescent psychiatrist who was previously medical director of Child Youth Mental Health Service Campus Services at the Queensland Children’s Hospital, and affiliated with the University of Queensland and Flinders University. Dr Johnstone was an Interventional Radiologist at Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital.

Dr Parry and Dr Johnstone were aggrieved by the vaccine requirements because it limited their ability to work as medical practitioners, both in the public system and more generally.

They argued that in issuing the mandate the director-general could not have been personally and independently confident of the risk posed by Covid-19 illness, nor of the efficacy of vaccines.

There was “no probative evidence” to justify the vaccine mandate, the application concluded, and failure to revoke it was “unreasonable, illogical and irrational”. A Queensland government spokesman said while he could not comment on matters before the court, it was at the discretion of individual employers to decide whether staff should be vaccinated against Covid-19.

“It is still a condition of employment for most Queensland Health staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19. This is to ensure the ongoing safety of employees, patients, visitors and the wider community,” he said.

Queensland dropped its public health directions requiring workers in schools, prisons, aged care, private hospitals and disability accommodation services to have had the jab on October 31 last year. Requirements remain in place for public health service employees, including those in state-run aged-care homes.

Dr Parry and Dr Johnstone are part of a second, similar judicial review against the state and chief health officer Dr John Gerard launched by 11 GPs and specialist doctors, filed in January last year.

Dr Parry was also part of a failed legal appeal by 23 healthcare workers and other professionals against the state of Queensland and the CHO last year.