A decree published on Sunday May 14 announces the suspension of the vaccination obligation. Almost two years after being suspended from their duties, these unvaccinated caregivers from Bouches-du-Rhône will be able to return to their jobs. Half-hearted relief.
By choosing not to be vaccinated in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, almost two years ago, thousands of caregivers were suspended from their duties. They can now return to their position, if they wish. A decree published on Sunday May 14 at Official newspaper indeed announces the suspension of the vaccination obligation. For Olga*, nurse in nursing home in the Bouches-du-Rhône, nothing very surprising: “VSIt was a long fight, but that made sense. I knew the bond was going to be suspended. It was a matter of time. But the victory is not yet complete. We have not been compensated for the damages and the law has not been repealed.”
The government indeed keeps the possibility of suspending the non-vaccinated again if the pandemic starts again, by a new decree. The PCF group in the National Assembly voted on May 4 a bill definitively repealing the obligation to vaccinate against Covid, which would prohibit any return of suspensions. But the government opposes it, and the bill has not yet been examined by the Senate.
“I’m afraid it will come back, says Olga. We don’t want this yo-yo, to be picked up and thrown away. Even if they suspend us again, I won’t get vaccinated.” Quit working elsewhere. For two years, Olga has been doing a series of jobs to get by. “As I work in a private establishment, I was able to find other jobs, I helped market gardeners, I worked in a warehouse, a week here, a week there, and for six months , I’m a maid.”
A makeshift solution that can no longer last for this mother, nurse for fifteen years: “I clearly need to get my nursing salary back. And it’s my job, I studied for it. I can’t leave the health system.”
Olga did not receive a letter from her management, inviting her to return to work. “I had to take the lead. Then my management told me that I could show up on Monday, May 15 at 8:15 am.” However, returning to your former position requires time to adapt: “We weren’t frozen in a fridge waiting for D-Day. We all have lives, we have to reorganize”, explains the caregiver. But she does not fear the hostility of her former colleagues: “I’m straight in my boots. I want to come back because otherwise it’s as if they won. I assume this position of being ‘confrontational’. It doesn’t matter what they may think I don’t care.”
Olga also resumes for all her colleagues “who are no longer there”. “There are many who have committed suicide. Who have lived through divorces, heartbreaks. For us it has been a struggle, our family lives have been put aside. There are also students who have not been able to finish their studies. VSIt was violent…”
“It was an inner struggle for many caregivers. We did not want to undergo this injunction, but some were forced to bow down.”
Olga*, nurse in the Bouches-du-Rhône
“All of this has created internal wounds, it will take years to heal. This decision to suspend unvaccinated caregivers has created a fracture within the health care community.” Olga recounts in particular the case of a colleague who had to change departments because her colleagues did not want her to come back, or of a second who suffered a “psychological interviewto find out why she didn’t want to get vaccinated. “They turned her brain around, she was vaccinated and the same evening hospitalized in psychiatry.”
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“It was incredible violence, we were disintegrated before being reintegrated, in turn tells Christian Barbe, a specialist educator in a medico-educational institute in Marseille and Union representative CGT of the Fouque association. I know families that have completely broken up. At work it’s the same, it pitted people against each other.”
Christian returned to work on Monday May 15. “I was waiting for this day because financially, despite my mandates as a union delegate, it was becoming complicated. Overall, I was well received at work. My fear is that some caregivers who have been vaccinated will have resentment for those who can return and who have resisted against all odds.”
According to the Ministry of Health, these reinstatements would concern “a few thousand” caregivers in France, a dozen at the Public Assistance-Hospitals of Marseille, therefore five caregivers, reports The world. “We estimate around 3,000. It’s quite difficult to have the exact figure”specified François Braun, this Monday on France Info, adding that the estimate was “very far” of the 15,000 suspended mentioned at the time of the obligation to vaccinate against Covid-19 taken in August 2021.
For Elsa Ruillère, leader of groups of caregivers refusing the vaccine and who became elected CGT Health, they would be “20 to 40 thousand” In France. The ministry forgets the private sector and the associations”, she told AFP. This is the case of Valérie*, educator specializing in medico-social in Marseille. After catching Covid at the start of the pandemic, Valérie chose not to get vaccinated. Financially in a bind, she ended up “to sell” : “As a single mom, it was too complicated. But I will no longer do this vaccine”, she assures. Since the pandemic, the specialist educator has approached other caregivers who have chosen not to be vaccinated.
“We talk a lot about caregivers who have assumed to say no. But around me, there are also a lot of people who have put themselves on leave, or who have simply resigned. And then there are all those, like me, who accepted the vaccine, fear in their stomachs. We experienced enormous pressure. We were mistreated, mistreated by public opinion.
And how to return? Valérie mentions the case of one of her colleagues, at La Timone, who went on leave at the time of the obligation. “She tells me that she will not be able to come back, for fear of the reactions of the other caregivers.”
“I find the fight of the suspended legitimate. For us, we must return to the basics of medicine: freedom of self, treatment, prescription, and free consent for patients. I support it, we are not antivax.”
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But then what is the profile of these caregivers who refused the vaccine? By collecting several hundred testimonies, the CNRS sociologist Frédéric Pierru, public health specialist and Alexandre Fauquette sought to understand why some caregivers had preferred to avoid the syringe. It shows “great distress”they expose in the columns of Release. “Unvaccinated caregivers are very overwhelmingly women, most are caregivers, nurses, and employees in the medico-social sector. They do generally part of the working classes.”
For Christian Barbe, the suspension of non-vaccinated caregivers “goes with the case of the public service.” “There are still a lot of temporary people, precarious people. A temporary worker is not going to invest knowing that he may not be there in two weeks. All the work is deconstructed, it is a bursting of the values of work . A crumbling.”
A position shared by Olga. “I grew up in Belgium. I was able to compare the two systems. In France, the functioning of the public service is absurd. Everything must be reviewed to save the hospital.”
This reintegration of non-vaccinated caregivers is not unanimous. According to Mathias Wargon, head of Smur emergencies at the Delafontaine hospital in Saint-Denis, this reintegration of unvaccinated caregivers “is something quite serious in public health”, he said on France Info. According to him, this “questions the obligation to vaccinate” caregivers, but also “beyond that, because there are 11 compulsory vaccines for children.”
At the end of March, the National Union of Nursing Professionals (SNPI) also condemned the recommendation of the HAS to lift the vaccination obligation, denouncing a “derivative”.
“We are not talking about the general population, we are talking about people who have a job, it is to be a caregiver“, insists Mathias Wargon: “What will we do the next time there is a wave of vaccination” and refusals? (…) Being a caregiver is a duty. Are we going to stop washing our hands tomorrow because we don’t believe in germs?”
“We can rewrite history as we wanthe assures. Vaccination has reduced serious forms, and probably reduced contagion. We have to stop thinking that there are two supporters, those who prefer blue and those who prefer red: vaccination is a tool for us.”
“We know that vaccination saves lives.declared on France Info François Braun, Minister of Health and Prevention. For me theethics of the caregiver is to protect themselves.”
*Names have been changed