“This vaccination obligation maintained without derogatory measure, at least transitory, is detrimental.e”, reacted on Friday on franceinfo the doctor Djillali Annane, head of the intensive care unit at the Raymond Poincaré Hospital in Garches and president of the Syndicate of intensive care physicians (SMR), while the government decided that non-vaccinated caregivers should not would not be reinstated, following the negative opinion of the High Authority for Health.
Djillali Annane points “the catastrophic situation in which the public hospital finds itself“. According to him, we can’t do without the slightest resource“currently in the hospital. The head of department denounces”the stigma of a group of caregivers“.
franceinfo: Is the government’s decision logical?
Djilalli Annane: The government’s decision is logical insofar as it follows the recommendations of the High Authority for Health and the Academy of Medicine to a lesser degree. But in practice, this vaccination obligation maintained without derogation, at least transitory given the catastrophic situation in which the public hospital finds itself, is perhaps a pity. We understand the important public health interest in ensuring that there is vaccination coverage for caregivers, especially caregivers who work with the most vulnerable. Nevertheless, in the situation in which we find ourselves today, we cannot do without the slightest resource.
The Minister of Health says that it would not change much in hospitals and that it does not concern a lot of people. What do you think ?
This changes symbolically in the stigmatization of a group of caregivers and therefore in the climate. The situation in which we find ourselves is largely due to a very bad atmosphere, a very bad climate, the distrust of many caregivers who are reluctant to return to work in the hospital. And as much as I completely agree with the need, on a public health level, for the vaccination coverage of caregivers, as much in the critical situation in which we find ourselves, which requires exceptional measures, a derogation from this obligation, on a transitional basis would probably have been an important element for the days and weeks to come, for this very acute and very difficult situation that we are living through.
Would this return of non-vaccinated caregivers have been easy in the face of other vaccinated caregivers?
Anyway, when we work on a daily basis, we don’t wonder who is vaccinated, who is not vaccinated. Caregivers, in contact with patients, have the most rigorous barrier gestures that can exist today. You have to have that nuance. There are barrier gestures which are extremely reinforced in the hospital. And let’s not forget that the vaccine does not prevent transmission. The vaccine prevents serious forms. It is not because we are vaccinated that we cannot transmit. And it is not because we are vaccinated in the hospital that we do not make extremely rigorous barrier gestures. So I’m not convinced by that argument.