Government health advisor rejects calls for mandatory COVID-19 vaccine

A former deputy chief medical officer has rejected calls for coronavirus vaccines to be made mandatory for healthcare workers, saying it is better to convince hospital and aged care staff to get the jab voluntarily.

Nick Coatsworth, who became one of the faces of the federal coronavirus response with daily televised briefings at the height of the pandemic and retains an advisory role with the government, said Australia had historically been good at vaccinating is population.

Former deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth wants Australia to prioritise voluntary vaccines.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Flu vaccines are required for most aged care and hospital workers under state public health orders introduced early in the pandemic and Prime Minister Scott Morrison has flagged public health authorities would consider similar measures for coronavirus vaccines.

“It’s not mandatory to work in an occupation, but it can be a requirement of an occupation for public health reasons that certain vaccinations are in place,” the Prime Minister said at a press conference in Canberra last month.

But Dr Coatsworth, who works as a senior administrator at Canberra Hospital, said on the ABC’s Q+A program that he would not support a requirement for all staff at his hospital to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

“We need to convince our healthcare workers just as much as the community at large that this is an effective vaccine and a safe vaccine and like the community, we can’t force anyone to take the vaccine,” Dr Coatsworth said.

Employers already have a power to direct their staff to obey reasonable directions at work, which some legal experts have suggested could be used to demand, on threat of dismissal, that employees get vaccinated. However, it has not yet been fully tested in the courts.

Dr Coatsworth was responding to Melbourne University epidemiologist Tony Blakely, who had suggested that while it was unethical to have a general rule requiring vaccinations, employers with care responsibilities for sick or vulnerable people such as hospitals or nursing homes were a special case.

“If you’re the employer running an intensive care unit or an aged care facility, it’s entirely appropriate at the institutional level to require that anybody working in that facility is vaccinated,” Professor Blakely said.

Hospital and aged care staff will be among the first groups offered a vaccine as early as this month, along with quarantine and border workers.

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