According to Frédéric Boiron, director general of the Lille University Hospital, “the non-vaccinated are a tiny minority, a stroke of the pen”. Non-vaccinated caregivers can return from this Monday to the hospitals in which they worked before the Covid.
“They are not expected”but “no one will ostracize”, assured Monday, May 15 on franceinfo Frédéric Boiron, director general of the Lille University Hospital, while people who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 can return from this Monday to the hospitals in which they practiced before the crisis. This represents in his hospital “seven people”either “less than 0.1% of staff” caregiver.
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These employees will not be integrated into the services of immunocompromised patients. “But in reality, the seven caregivers concerned for two years, most certainly already have another activity”he pointed out. “The unvaccinated are a tiny minority, a stroke of the pen” at the Lille University Hospital, he said.
franceinfo: How many people does that represent in your hospital?
Frederic Boiron: The unvaccinated, a tiny minority. It’s a stroke of the pen. Of the 9,000 caregivers at the CHU, only seven people remained refractory to vaccination. That’s less than 0.1% of the staff concerned and 21 in all out of the almost 17,000 employees. No doctor and therefore a very small proportion of the staff.
What is the point of reintegrating these people?
In terms of interest in welcoming patients and caring for patients who confide in us, it is nil. This is an extremely low proportion of staff. 99% of CHU staff have been vaccinated. The remaining 1% is mostly medical contraindications. It’s really a very small proportion of people for reasons of their own, who have made an individual choice. It’s of no immediate use to us. I understand that we can be different elsewhere.
Do you think that this reintegration gives a bad image of vaccination?
It’s not just a question of image, it’s a question of truth. Vaccination saves our lives. I spent 50 years hearing my grandparents talk about poliomyelitis and the devastation it caused. It was vaccination that saved us from that, like many other serious infectious pathologies. Vaccination is not just about image, it really is the truth. It is an act which is not only individual, but collective. It is the sense of the interest of others, it is a normal and moral attitude for many caregivers.
Are these people who are going back to work in your CHU welcome?
No one will ostracize with us. We have a great tradition of listening to and understanding points of view in our hospitals. Public hospitals are structures that also operate very, very humanistically and democratically. They are not expected since they have also chosen to put themselves outside. The truth is that I especially want to pay tribute to others, to the thousands of people who took all the necessary precautions to cope. These are the people who managed the crisis, who welcomed the patients and cared for them. This is what deserves to be underlined.
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Will they be integrated into departments where they will have little contact with patients?
There are several situations. We care for immunocompromised patients. Lille is a big university hospital. There are very serious patients. We cannot put patients in the presence of people who do not have the necessary protection. It is for the patients that the risk is obviously a priority. In these cases, we will choose not to put people of this nature in the services of immunocompromised patients. But in reality, the seven caregivers concerned for two years, most certainly already have another activity and not all of them will want to resume their service. We look on a case-by-case basis and the position can either be the same, but it has generally been replaced, or more likely an equivalent position.