TRENTO. The provincial health authority has set appointments for the anti-covid vaccination of 350 operators (mainly nurses and Oss, few doctors) out of the 9 thousand who still resist the obligation of law for the week after Ferragosto (16-21 August) .
But overall – even counting the health workers employed by private structures – there are about 800 unvaccinated.
All these health workers were met with a peremptory warning sent in recent days by the company by letter, a real ultimatum: the last call. If they do not show up for the appointment set for them, the procedure will start by the end of August which provides for possible demotion, smart working, if feasible, or suspension from work.
Unlike in Alto Adige, where the suspension of “no vax” sanitary ware and the related appeals to the TAR began between June and July, in Trentino it was decided to give more time and an attempt has been made to persuade the most reluctant to get vaccinated to reduce the number of those who resist, also to avoid putting the organization in crisis in some departments or sectors of the Trentino health system.
For this reason, it was decided to allow four months to pass from the approval of the Draghi government decree which on 1 April introduced the obligation of the vaccine against Covid for health personnel.
Now the hope is that even this residual number of 350 employees not yet vaccinated may be further reduced, in any case the current general manager of the health company, Antonio Ferro, already reassured in July that even if between 200 and 300 no vax remained convinced on the nine thousand employees of the health company “there is no risk of the closure of departments”.
In addition to the company’s employees, there are also those who work for private clinics, other health facilities and in retirement homes.
And then the numbers go up because overall, explains Giancarlo Ruscitti, manager of the Health Department of the Province, “800 letters were sent” (the number includes the 350 employees of the Company) who had not answered the first call and for which it is An appointment for vaccination was set by August.
Vaccine dodgers, who hopefully will be reduced in these days, however, in Trentino reach a significantly lower number than that of health workers in the nearby Province of Bolzano, where just yesterday it was communicated by the Bolzano health authority that there are still 2,123 unvaccinated health workers in South Tyrol.
Of the 3,967 unvaccinated in the first phase of the immunization campaign (Health Authority: 1,333; external personnel: 2,634), 1,844 people have in the meantime been vaccinated (Health Authority: 630; external personnel: 1,214).
On the subject of compulsory vaccination for the health professions, the president of the Trentino Order of Nurses, Daniel Pedrotti, intervened to reiterate «strongly that the nursing profession recognizes the value of scientific evidence as the basis of professional action. Getting vaccinated for a nurse is primarily a moral and deontological duty, a responsibility towards citizens and public health. Vaccines are the only way to get back to normal as quickly as possible. The vaccine is safe and is by no means an experimental drug ».