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David Seymour
ACT Party Leader
Health Minister Andrew Little today told Parliament there are 64 additional vacancies for midwives than he previously stated – if he wants to fill those vacancies it’s time to lift the vaccine mandates.
Little had to correct the record in Parliament today. He previously said there were 310 midwife vacancies when there are actually 374. Meanwhile, there are more than 2,500 vacancies for nurses.
Women I have spoken to have told me they’d rather have an unvaccinated midwife than no midwife at all. Over 1000 health workers nationwide have been stood down because of vaccination mandates, including 518 nurses and dozens of midwives. Can we really afford to not have all hands on deck right now?
Emergency Departments are at breaking point. A patient at Middlemore Hospital died after leaving because of long waiting times. Nurses who continue to work are facing burnout. This is literally a matter of life or death.
Influenza is rife in our hospitals, if the flu jab isn’t mandated, why is the COVID vaccine? It doesn’t make any sense.
It’s time to get rid of rules that don’t make sense. ACT thinks it should be up to organisations to make policies as they see fit, including the ability to have regular rapid antigen tests as an alternative to vaccination, which give greater reassurance that a health worker does not have COVID-19 than their vaccination status.
ACT’s Health spokesperson Brooke van Velden has written to the new COVID-19 Response Minister Ayesha Verrall asking her to consider this common-sense change that could help address the workforce shortages facing our health system.
