Hundreds of ambulance paramedics in the Australian state of Victoria have declined to be vaccinated for covid-19
The Australian Medical Association is now reinforcing it’s calls for mandatory vaccinations for all frontline healthcare workers, including paramedics.
ABC news reports: Internal Ambulance Victoria figures obtained by the ABC show that 256 “on-road clinical staff” from Ambulance Victoria have declined to be vaccinated, 4.6 per cent of the total number of paramedics.
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
The Australian Medical Association has called for compulsory vaccination of all frontline medical staff, and its president told the ABC those who did not wish to be vaccinated should consider leaving their profession.
However, the ambulance union has cautioned against reading too much into the figures and argued against mandatory vaccination of paramedics.
The revelation also came as the ambulance union complained that paramedics were being sent to the homes of COVID-19 patients without being warned they were entering an exposure site.
The internal Ambulance Victoria figures show that the highest rates of vaccine refusal among paramedics were in the Gippsland and Grampians regions, with 7.9 per cent and 7.5 per cent of paramedics respectively in those areas declining to be vaccinated.
The lowest rates of refusal among paramedics were in the “complex care” and metro areas, with 1.8 per cent and 3.2 per cent of ambulance workers in those categories declining vaccination.
