It took 561 days. This Thursday, March 30, the High Authority for Health (HAS) recommended the end of the vaccination obligation for caregivers. According to the health authority, this decision is made “on the basis of strictly medical and scientific elements”. France is however the last European country to have deprived itself of thousands of health personnel, vis-à-vis a vaccine which has never prevented the transmission of Sras-CoV 2. The health and social toll is heavy : misunderstanding, destroyed vocations, impoverishment of entire families, departures abroad, suicides…
In May 2022, according to a study carried out by the Fédération hospitalière de France (FHF), and updated in September, around 4,000 personnel in the health and medico-social sector have still been suspended from their duties since September 15, 2021, for having refused to get vaccinated with the first 3 doses of vaccine against Covid-19.
The statistician and analyst Pierre Chaillot (Decoding the Eco) has already had the opportunity to challenge this estimate in our columns, and considers that the figure should be revised upwards.
“These recommendations are made on the basis of strictly medical and scientific elements (…) the message must be clear, because the antivax will jump”
The High Authority for Health (HAS) now recommends “no longer an obligation, but a strong recommendation for the vaccination of professionals against Covid-19”.
In a communiquéthe health authority specifies that it has “taken into account epidemiological data, vaccination coverage of the general population and professionals, the availability of vaccines and the latest efficacy and safety data”to support its decision.
She also launched a public consultation from February 20 to March 3, 2023 in order “enrich its final recommendation” which she finally returned yesterday.
If the HAS insists on the significant effectiveness of vaccination against Covid-19 to avoid “serious forms and death” she acknowledges that “Protection against infection and/or symptomatic forms decreases significantly after a few weeks depending on the appearance of variants escaping immune protection, regardless of the person’s age”.
In addition, experts point out that “while some countries around the world have implemented, at different times and for different categories of professionals, vaccination obligations, most of these obligations have been removed or are suspended”.
France is thus the last European country to maintain the measure.
However, Dominique Le Guludec, the president of the health authority, does not budge: “These recommendations are made on the basis of strictly medical and scientific elements”. “The message will have to be clear, because the antivax will surge. But maintaining the obligation to vaccinate caregivers without the obligation of a reminder in the general population would not make much sense”, continues for his part the immunologist Stéphane Paul, member of the Technical Commission for Vaccinations of the HAS.
And would keeping thousands of unvaccinated caregivers out of work have many more? Contrary to what HAS wants you to believe, criteria other than science have come into play since September 2021.
Towards a reinstatement of suspended staff?
“A decree will be issued” to this end to reintegrate the staff, after consultation with the hospital federations and the health orders, announced yesterday the Minister of Health, François Braun.
In February 2023, the government requested the opinion of the HAS and, at the same time, that of the National Consultative Ethics Committee (CCNE) in order to enlighten it on the question of the obligation to vaccinate healthcare personnel.
If the HAS has just made its recommendation, this is not yet the case for the CCNE, the body responsible for measuring “acceptability” the reinstatement of suspended staff.
But the Minister of Health will not have waited for it in the end and has already announced that he is working on the reinstatement of these agents. Proof if any that the fate reserved for suspended caregivers has always been in the hands of politics.
Minister Braun admitted it himself at the podium of the National Assembly on November 25, 2022: “What signal do we want to send to the people who were there on the front line and who got vaccinated?”
Once again, the extreme left has joined forces with the extreme right to defend a text with a remedy worse than the disease. The obligation to vaccinate caregivers is an ethical and scientific issue that deserves calm debate. We owe it to the French, as epidemics resume. pic.twitter.com/INtjZ7cUAq
— François Braun (@FrcsBraun) November 25, 2022
To claim that caregivers who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 have suffered more than 500 days of suspension for purely scientific reasons is to claim that the political world has no responsibility for what has happened to them.
These carers must be rehabilitated in their functions, but the question of their compensation, linked to their uncollected salaries, must also be asked.
How many of them have not been living decently since September 2021? How many of them have been reclassified, expatriated, forced to resign or take early retirement? or even worse, how many of them committed suicide?
To claim that caregivers who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 have suffered more than 500 days of suspension for purely scientific reasons is to claim that they have no right to compensation.
The writing of France-Eveningrenews their full support.