Care workers in the UK have been leaving the industry en masse and creating huge staffing shortages after they were told to get vaccinated against covid or lose their jobs
Source: RT
After speaking to to several care home industry officials,The Guardian reported: “three-quarters of care home operators are reporting an increase in staff quitting since April,” They said the reasons were “a desire for less stress and for higher pay” and “to avoid mandatory vaccination, which comes into effect on 11 November.”
Senior care staff say they are “genuinely concerned about the safety and sustainability of services” amid the ongoing staffing shortages, exhaustion and the extreme difficulty in recruiting.
The Department of Health and Social Care said the government has been trying to boost recruitment with a national campaign and pushing care posts in jobcentres.
RT reports: In response to the mass exodus, the industry is now desperately calling on the government to end its mandatory vaccination policy for care workers, warning that a “catastrophe” is on the horizon.
National Care Association executive chairman Nadra Ahmed told the Guardian that the National Health Service (NHS) will ultimately “have to pick up this mess” and called on the government to reconsider its policy, while public service union Unison declared that ministers “must immediately repeal ‘no jab, no job’ laws for care home staff in England to avert a staffing crisis that threatens to overwhelm the sector.”
The government must scrap the ‘no jab, no job’ rule now. Widespread care home closures could be the consequence if they ignore the warnings. This would be disastrous for elderly people and those who cannot live without care support.
Unison warned that the “draconian” mandatory vaccination policy is “pushing thousands to the brink of quitting care work” and said the government is “sleepwalking into a disaster” by ensuring a massive shortage of staff during a pandemic.
The union also revealed that many care workers – who are already underpaid and overworked – “feel totally undervalued” and that “being bullied” into taking a vaccine they didn’t want was “the last straw” for many in the industry.
The vacancies for care workers could total more than 170,000 people – with 70,000 being those who refuse the jab – after mandatory vaccination is implemented later this year, according to government estimates cited in the media.
During the first wave of the pandemic, elderly people in care homes made up roughly half of all Covid-19 deaths in the UK between March and September 2020.
Nearly 30,000 residents died and it was later discovered that a shortage of personal protective equipment contributed to the problems experienced.