Those who do not get vaccinated cannot be in contact with patients

at Antonio Panti

06 LUG –

Dear Director,
yesterday a very questionable thesis appeared on QS. Dr. Becarelli states: “having accepted to inflict an unjust discriminatory measure on colleagues (the suspension for refusing to be vaccinated ed.) Has aroused the legitimate dissent of a part of the category: much heavier responsibility will be borne by the Orders if they do not stop the inglorious defeat of the profession “.

The colleague believes that if the Order had defended the “legitimate” anti-vaccination attitude of some “qualified and expert” doctors it would have helped to halt the decline or even the defeat of the medical profession. The shortages of staff, she claims, have exploded with these suspensions (actually a percentage of less than 10%) which would have had a heavy impact on mortality from Covid.

The colleague regrets that the Order has not opened a high-profile debate on the critical issues that emerged with the pandemic and with the vaccination campaign so that “if the nurse will carry out a surrogacy of general medicine or bioengineers and physicists programmers will manage the transformation high tech of the clinic, what fate awaits medicine? “

The colleague, who even boasts bioethical qualifications, eludes an observation: can a doctor, from an ethical and scientific point of view, ignore the clinical risk and decrease the protection of patients for a personal idea? Furthermore, everything can be said against modern science except that there has not been a very high profile international debate. The results are published everywhere and the most important scientific bodies have expressed their opinion.

The real problem is far from it. This government decision was handled very badly by giving the side to more than justified criticism: the vaccination registry made a bad impression. It was quite obvious to entrust to the NHS the sanction envisaged for vaccine-aversive health personnel as the vaccination obligation is nothing more than a service charge. Those who do not get vaccinated cannot stay in contact with patients and will be subjected to the sanction provided.

It is a simple occupational medicine procedure and the Orders have nothing to do with it. While the Orders should have had information and judged on a disciplinary level those doctors who advise against vaccination and put their patients’ health at risk. In short, with this improvised and improvised procedure, the Orders were prevented from doing their job, the defense of the citizen through professional ethics.

Vaccines are one of the great achievements of social medicine such as water purification or food hygiene and one cannot defend vaccine-reluctant doctors unless the scientificity of medical practice is questioned. Years ago, starting from a document of the Federation of Orders, a great debate began which led to the law on compulsory school vaccination.

A high moment of the profession that sanctioned its task: to protect the health of individuals and the community. At this point, between war and pandemic, there is no shortage of ideas for a deontological reflection which, in the face of such pseudo defenses of a surreptitious freedom, seems urgent.

Antonio Panti

06 July 2022
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