The first procedures have been launched by the health companies of various Regions for the suspension of unvaccinated health workers for Covid-19. These are doctors, nurses, operators of the various health professions and socio-health assistants for whom the law provides for the obligation to vaccinate as a requirement for the exercise of the profession. To date, according to the estimates of the commissioner for the Covid emergency, the army of ‘no vax’ operators would count over 45 thousand professionals, of which however only 0.2% – specify the trade unions – is represented by doctors. More precisely, according to the weekly report of the Commissarial structure, there are 45,753, including doctors, nurses and health personnel in general, health professionals not yet vaccinated in Italy: this is 2.36% of the category. The Regions with unvaccinated subjects for this category on their territory are Emilia Romagna (14,390: 7.87% compared to the number of health workers in the whole Region, where the investigations should be completed within days), Sicily (9,214 – 6.52 %), Puglia (9.099 – 6.50%) and Friuli Venezia Giulia (5.671 -11.91%), Piedmont (2.893 – 1.90%), Marche (1.181 – 2.58%), Umbria (928 – 3 , 02%) and Liguria (172 – 0.29%). The numbers in the Province of Trento are also high (2,205 – 11.03%).
For these health workers, explains the secretary of the major of the unions of hospital doctors, Anaao-Assiomed, Carlo Palermo, “in the first instance, the law provides that they can be assigned to perform other tasks not in contact with patients, but this only where possible; secondly, the operator or the doctor can be put on compulsory leave. In the last resort, suspension from the profession is used without receiving the salary. However, the possibility of dismissal is not contemplated and the rule has in any case valid until 31 December 2021 “. In any case, Palermo underlines, “the unvaccinated doctors, out of the total number of health workers, and for whom the ASL could initiate suspension proceedings, are a very low percentage: no more than 0.2%, equal to about 200- 300 doctors on the national territory “. However, he warns, the position of the union is “clear and clear”: “Doctors cannot fail to get vaccinated as it is inadmissible that treatment centers such as hospitals can turn into places of potential epidemic contagion for citizens”. On the same line, the president of the National Federation of Medical Orders (Fnomceo) Filippo Anelli, who today sent a circular to all territorial orders, after having received clarifications on the interpretation of the law by the Ministry of Health.