France suspends 3,000 health workers for failing to get a COVID jab

France suspends around 3,000 health workers for failing to get a COVID jab before the September 15 deadline.     

France’s health minister Olivier Veran announced the news on Thursday morning, September 16. Speaking to RTL radio he said: “Yesterday, some 3,000 suspensions were served on staff in health and social care facilities who had not yet entered into a vaccination course.”

The minister also highlighted that: “the continuity of care and the security of care and quality of care were assured yesterday in all hospitals and medico-social facilities”.

He did though explain that some services such coronary angiogram and MRI services were affected negatively for a few hours.

The health sector has nearly 3 million employees and the health minister explained that of the 3000 suspensions, “a large number” are “only temporary”. According to the minister most of the suspensions affect support staff, but there are a “few white coats” that have been suspended too.

Some people have chosen to resign over the mandatory nature of the coronavirus vaccines. Veran said: “There are a few dozen resignations at this stage that have been recorded in the country.”

The decision to make coronavirus vaccines compulsory for healthcare workers was made in and mid-July by President Emmanuel Macron. The deadline had been set for September 15 and France have held true to this.

In other coronavirus news, three out of four people in Spain are now fully vaccinated against the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

According to the latest data which was published on Wednesday by the Ministry of Health three out of four people in Spain have now had both jabs of one of the multidose vaccines or a single dose of the Janssen vaccine.

It was only around 15 days ago that the government’s target of 70 per cent of the population being immunised was reached.  The Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, has said that this figure was a “tremendously relevant” figure.

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