NAJ takes issue with 'vaccinate or test' proposal for health care workers

 

The Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) has said it is disappointed with the recommendation for a COVID-19 vaccinate or test mandate for health care workers. 

 

It has also questioned the data being used to promote the proposed policy, especially as it relates to public health nurses.

 

The Professor Gordon Shirley-led National COVID-19 Vaccination Operationalisation Task Force on Wednesday said, with the exception of the Jamaica Defence Force, there has been a low vaccination rate among frontline workers.

 

Professor Shirley said increasing the vaccination rate among hesitant health care workers was a priority.

 

As such, the task force recommended the vaccinate or test policy, which it believes would help increase uptake of the COVID-19 jab.   

 

Professor Shirley has said "the government should support the cost of testing for a few weeks, after which, the health care workers will have to assume the cost for doing it themselves".

 

However, he recommended a period of public education before implementing the mandate.

 

Still, NAJ president Patsy Edwards Henry has deemed the move as premature. 

 

"I cannot agree that we are not taking the vaccine. We may be taking it a little slower than you and other persons expect us to take it, but I am not going to say we are not taking the vaccine," she told Sanjay Lewis, the host of Power 106 FM's Morning Agenda. 

 

"Eighty-eight per cent of the population has not yet been vaccinated and you are now going to say to the nurses who are vaccinating the population to continue to care for that 88 per cent who are not vaccinated while paying to care for them," she contended. 

 

She insisted that nurses are not against the COVID-19 vaccine but have concerns similar to others in the population. 

 

"A whole lot of work needs to be done to educate not only the population and the taker, but to ensure that the numbers that they are putting out is correct. Because if you call the ministry regions anywhere now, they cannot tell you exactly how many nurses have taken (the vaccine). So while we are targeting nurses, we need to make sure that our statistics are at a place where we can definitively say this is what is happening," she suggested. 

 

Mrs Edwards Henry said up to August, the Ministry of Health reported that more than 60 per cent of nurses had been fully vaccinated.

 

She expects the number of fully vaccinated nurses to increase with the arrival on Wednesday of more doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

 

Trust needed                 

 

At the same time, Opposition Spokesperson on Health Dr. Morais Guy has said it is important that Jamaicans trust health care workers administering the vaccine and providing general information about getting inoculated.

 

"If they are not taking the vaccine, then certainly, as you have suggested, it may blunt the potential for more people to take the vaccines," he reasoned. 

 

Dr. Guy said he would support the vaccinate or test mandate after a period of discussion with nurses "to allay some of the fears that they may have" and "so that they can project that positivity in going out there in the community". 

 

He was also a guest on the Morning Agenda on Thursday.