Yasmina Kattou, edited by Loane Nader // photo credit: PHILIPPE HUGUEN / AFP 10:33 am, May 15, 2023

Caregivers and health workers can now return to hospital services, after refusing to be vaccinated during the Covid-19 outbreak. Good news for some, but apprehension for others, who will face the disapproval and concern of their department heads.

This Sunday, the decree allowing the reintegration of caregivers and health workers not vaccinated with Covid-19 was published in the Official Journal. While the news is a relief for some, many will face disapproval from their colleagues and more specifically from their department heads. This is the case of Gilles Pialoux, head of the infectious diseases department at Tenon Hospital in Paris.

For the doctor, it would be dangerous for the most fragile patients to be in contact with unvaccinated staff. "There are still people who do not have vaccine efficacy because of their immunosuppression. I am thinking in particular of those who have kidney transplants," he said. "Explain to me how you are going to reintegrate unvaccinated people into bone marrow transplant services, for example."

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"It's a bad message"

In addition, for the infectious disease specialist, the reintegration of unvaccinated women sends the wrong message to the rest of the population. "People will hear that this is the end clap, that there is no longer any need to vaccinate," a political decision that regrets Gilles Pialoux and which sends "a bad message at a time when we are in total uncertainty of what will happen in the fall and winter."

He also assures that the return of vaccinated staff will not solve the problem of lack of staff in the establishments.