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Michele Neil,a nurse working on the vaccination rollout,says aged-care workers have had ample warning to get vaccinated.

I know the union is promoting vaccination,and that it is not requesting the removal of a deadline but to have it deferred for a month,given chronic staff shortages and problems with the vaccine rollout. But aged-care workers have had plenty of time.

I cannot think of any other sector of the workforce that has received more encouragement to get vaccinated.

Few could claim the federal government’s vaccine rollout has been a shining example of international best practice. But it is now mid-September and those residential aged-care workers not yet vaccinated have,by now,had every opportunity – and incentive – to do so.

Information on the vaccine is provided in many languages and it has been available in a variety of hubs,GP clinics and pharmacies. And you can get proof of vaccination,even if you don’t hold a Medicare card.

Let me help Gerard Hayes see the situation another way. Choosing not to get themselves vaccinated by now shows a profound disrespect for the elderly,vulnerable residents they turn up to work for each day. Not getting vaccinated imperils these people’s lives. We know from the daily press conferences that even double-vaccinated residents remain vulnerable when exposed to the COVID virus.

Surely,the residents and their families deserve better?

Vaccines have been with us now for more than two centuries,ever since Edward Jenner famously inoculated a 13-year-old boy in 1796 with cowpox and demonstrated immunity to smallpox. Millions of lives have been saved and disabilities prevented by the miracle of vaccines. We know they are safe. The science supports them. They are a mainstay of our public health system. Public health is just that – it’s for the public,for everyone.

It’s time to stop this softly-softly approach to vaccine resistance and call it for what it is – selfishness.

Because every person who refuses a vaccine weakens the chance for the rest of our Australian herd to recover from this dreadful virus.

For those residential aged-care refuseniks,their selfishness will come at a giant personal price:the loss of their job. But it needn’t be that way. It just requires a change of thinking. Get vaccinated,and keep caring for
those fragile,elderly people who need your help.

That way you can work for the whole,not just the one.

Michele Neil is a registered nurse working on the COVID frontline. She has spent many years workingin aged care.

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