French authorities have suspended 3,000 healthcare workers who have not been vaccinated against coronavirus, with France’s health minister saying that many have since agreed to be inoculated now that they had seen “the mandate was a reality”.
Wednesday was the deadline for French healthcare workers to have received at least one dose of the vaccination, with Minister for Health Olivier Véran confirming to RTL on Thursday that authorities had served “some 3,000 suspensions” to unvaccinated personnel.
“There were yesterday some 3,000 suspensions which were served on the staff of health or medico-social establishments who had not yet begun a vaccination course,” Mr Véran said.
France’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the staff cannot be fired, but newspaper 20 Minutes reports that the suspensions are without pay.
In July, President Emmanuel Macron announced that from September 15th, medical staff, including nurses, ambulance workers, medical taxi drivers, firefighters, home helpers, and medical receptionists and secretaries, would have to be vaccinated.
The rules affected France’s 2.7 million employees in the sectors, and speaking of the 3,000 suspensions, Mr Véran said: “I am still cautious, but we did not have chaos and the vaccination coverage figures in nursing homes and hospitals are much higher than what they would have been without the vaccination mandate.”
He also said that there have only been “a few dozen” resignations, saying: “Many of them decided to be vaccinated, seeing that the mandate was a reality.”
The French government’s health authority said on Tuesday that around 300,000 health workers in total are not vaccinated, suggesting that these may be the first, rather than the last, suspensions.
While the French health minister downplayed the numbers of those suspended, others in the healthcare industry have warned of the damaging effect that even temporarily losing staff could have.
BFM TV reported on Tuesday that a hospital in Montélimar in southern France had cancelled dozens of operations scheduled for next week because there was a shortage of inoculated anaesthetists.
“There are practically four theatres that will not be able to run normally. Over a week, that makes 150 procedures that have to be postponed,” Dr Henri Osman told the broadcaster.
Emmanuel Chignon, director of the Terre-Nègre retirement home in Bordeaux, told RTL he is worried that if he cannot replace the unvaccinated staff, “the work will be pushed on to others, and I fear an unvirtuous circle, with tiredness, exhaustion, and an increase in absenteeism”.
The UK likewise faces a staffing crisis in the care industry exasperated by the mandate demanding complete vaccination by November 11th.
The British government already predicts around 40,000 workers out of 570,000 in Care Quality Commission-regulated facilities in England could still be unvaccinated by the deadline. The government is also considering bringing in the mandate for its 1.3 million frontline National Health Service (NHS) staff.