Starting this Monday, caregivers who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 will be able to practice again

A decision that is controversial, but that is now official. This Sunday, the government published in the Official Gazette the decree that allows caregivers not vaccinated against Covid, who had been suspended from their duties since August 2021, to return to work.

According to this document, signed by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne and the Minister of Health, François Braun, the text “enters into force the day after its publication”, that is, this Monday, May 15. Interested professionals will be able to return today.

Under reservation

The conditions for this return, which provide in particular that the suspended person be reinstated in the same position or in an “equivalent” position, were defined by the Government in a ministerial instruction issued two weeks ago, to leave hospitals and other establishments to time to prepare.

The government retains the possibility of suspending the unvaccinated again if the pandemic were to start again, through a new decree.

On March 30, the High Health Authority (HAS) issued an opinion, recommends the lifting of the obligation to vaccinate against Covid-19 for caregivers. In the process, the Minister of Health, François Braun, announced that the government would follow this advice.

At the same time, the PCF group in the National Assembly voted on May 4 for a bill that definitively repeals the obligation to vaccinate against Covid. But the government is opposed and the bill has not yet been considered by the Senate.

Minority

The exclusion of unvaccinated caregivers has inflamed social media, but the number of people affected is likely to be quite small.

Estimates range from a few thousand, according to fragmentary indications obtained in particular from the Ministry of Health, to “from 20 to 40,000 people”, according to Elsa Ruillère, leader of groups of caregivers who reject the vaccine that became elected CGT Salud.

According to the French federation of hospitalsonly 4,000 health professionals are suspended, that is, 0.3% of hospital personnel in the country.

In total, the obligation to vaccinate 2.7 million people was requested, whether they were in direct contact with the sick -caregivers, nurses, doctors, paramedics, home helpers, firefighters- or even indirectly, such as the administrative staff of health establishments. .