Compulsory Covid jabs for NHS workers set to be put on hold after Tory revolt and warning from Royal College of GPs it will lead to chronic staff shortages - while healthcare workers dump their scrubs outside Downing Street during protest march
Boris Johnson is said to be considering 'kicking it down the road' to avoid another potentially humiliating Tory revolt, reported the Telegraph.
It comes just two weeks before medical workers will be required to prove their vaccination status - with February 3 marking the last day they can book in for a jab. On February 4, those without jabs will face dismissal warnings. They will then be asked to work out their notice periods until March 31.
Despite the threats to their career and several booster campaigns, more than 80,000 NHS staff - six per cent of the workforce - remain unvaccinated.
Comment: A November 2021 study by the House of Lords found the number was actually closer to 126,000 healthcare staff that, up to that point, had rejected the jab offer. Granted, since then some will have succumbed to the coercion, and some will have left their job rather than risk having the dismissal on their record.
Many of them joined anti-vaxxers across the country on Saturday as they protested against the mandatory vaccine rules. In London, dozens of health workers were seen throwing their scrubs at police officers outside Downing Street, while others laid down their uniforms in Trafalgar Square.
Notorious anti-vaxxer Piers Corbyn was among the crowds as they gathered outside BBC Broadcasting House, where one protestor donned a Squid Game mask and biohazard suit, complete with a blow-up syringe.
Comment: Note that many of these are healthcare workers, they administer vaccines on a regular basis, they're far from being anti-vaxxers. Many of them have gone record stating that bodily autonomy is paramount and if they give up theirs, they risk subjecting patients to the same violations.
One Ambulance worker's uniform was left hanging in Regent's Park, with a message written on the back, reading: 'Paramedic 9 years, clapping on Thursday, spat out on Monday.'
An NHS worker leaves a uniform shirt saying 'paramedic 9 years, clapping on Thursday, spat out on Monday' on a railing in Regent's Park in London today
Although the UK's mortality rate has dropped massively as more people have been vaccinated, some anti-vaxx nurses maintain the life-saving jab is an 'experimental drug'.
Comment: It has since become clear that the excess deaths have been caused by the lockdowns; the impact of which, due to missed appointments and care, will likely reverberate for years.
The demonstrations Saturday came as the Royal College of GPs called on the Government to extend the deadline to prevent mass staff shortages in the health service.
Chairman Martin Marshall said compulsory vaccination for health professionals was 'not the right way forward' and about ten per cent of staff at some hospitals and GP surgeries had not had the Covid jab.
Protesting in London, ambulance worker Christabelle Gregory, 32, said: 'People were once clapping for us but there's no appreciation any more. I'm young and I've got antibodies from working on the frontline, so I don't want the vaccine.'
Emergency care assistant Victoria Kesserwan, 36, from Oxford, added: 'I am going to lose the job I love because I don't want the vaccine. It is too new and we don't know enough about it.'
Many of the NHS protesters wore blue hoodies produced by the NHS100k campaign group, formed to oppose the NHS mandate. The group claims up to 100,000 health workers may lose their jobs if the Government doesn't do a U-turn.
But The Mail on Sunday can reveal the group has disturbing links to anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists and Far Right politicians.
Comment: The Mail on Sunday thinks that nearly 10% of the UK's healthcare staff are 'conspiracy theorists'?
The NHS100k website urges supporters to join Rebels On Roundabouts, an anti-vaxxer group whose supporters stand on roundabouts holding yellow signs claiming vaccines are killing children. On its website, the group claims the vaccine rollout 'is a sinister control and depopulation agenda'.
Comment: If the vaccines were harmless the pharmaceutical industry wouldn't need an immunity clause removing them from liability for the damage they cause: Alarming Increase in Mortality Rates in 2021: Why COVID Shots Are Disproportionately Affecting Young Males (For Now)
After it was contacted by this newspaper, NHS100k said it had removed any reference to Rebels On Roundabouts from its website, adding: 'This type of misinformation is dangerous and definitely not a view NHS100k agrees with.'
NHS100k has also urged its tens of thousands of followers to join the Workers of England Union, which is run by leaders of the Far-Right English Democrats party.
NHS workers holding up signs, from the newly formed group 100K, gather at Regent's Park in London before joining the demonstrations today
Mr Tilbrook welcomed former BNP members into his party and has met the English Defence League and Britain First in the past. In December 2020 he appeared on an online video channel run by a neo-Nazi named Mark Collett, once leader of the BNP youth wing. Mr Collet is leader of the Hard-Right group Patriotic Alternative.
NHS100k said it was 'not aware of any allegations that the Workers of England Union is run by people who identify as 'Far Right' '. It added it had 'no alignment' with any party or other organisation.
Comment: Again, they can attempt to smear the protests all they like but clearly 100,000+ healthcare staff are not neo-Nazis.
Mr Morris said: 'Workers of England Union will undoubtedly have members from various political parties. However, the Workers of England Union is politically neutral, we don't have a political fund and don't fund any political party. We are an independent trade union.'
NHS managers have been advised they can move unvaccinated medics from the frontline into roles which do not involve direct patient contact.
Comment: The UK's NHS is already massively understaffed. A loss of that many people would mean the NHS would collapse. However, that's beside the point, no one should be forced into a medical procedure that they do not want, nor do they need.
Bosses won't have to help staff find 'suitable alternative employment' and redundancy payments will not be made to those who are dismissed.
The demonstration is part of a national campaign calling on healthcare staff to be given 'freedom of choice'.
A Yorkshire NHS nurse has said she has chosen to walk away from the job she has been in for 30 years rather than have the Covid vaccine.
Cara Barnes, from West Yorkshire, has worked as a specialist nurse for three decades.
But she is set to lose her job as she is refusing to have the Covid-19 jab, which she claims is an 'experimental drug'.
Comment: The jabs are stil in the trial period, therefore they are experimental; the mRNA ones in particular: RNA Vaccines, Obedience and Eugenics
But Cara, who attended the 'World Wide Rally For Freedom' in Leeds city centre today, says she plans to stand firm.
Speaking to Leeds Live, she said: 'I am not prepared to be injected with an experimental drug.
'Coercion is not a choice. It is not the fault of the NHS but I am disappointed - this is not how I saw my 30-year career-ending.'
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the town hall in Leeds for today's protest. NHS staff were seen hanging their uniforms up outside the entrance to the hall to symbolise what they have described as being 'left out to dry'.
David Hesford, 52, has worked in the NHS for 26 years and is currently a senior health care support officer.
He said he has been told he will be sacked if he does not have the jab but that he has chosen not to disclose his vaccination status.
David said: 'If the government are going to sack me then they obviously do not care about me.
'Freedom is the first choice. I have chosen not to divulge my vaccination status - it is about choice.'
People held signs protesting against the BBC, COVID vaccinations and NHS vaccine mandates.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid last week told the Commons the Government remained committed to the plans.
MrJavid previously expressed his disagreement at NHS workers who are against mandatory vaccination and urged the public to get boosted.
He said: 'I understand it, and obviously we have to weigh all that up for both health and social care, and there will always be a debate about it.'
However, he said the government was taking advice 'from people who are actually experts'.
Mr Javid has stuck by the move, saying it was the 'duty' of NHS workers to get the jab in order to protect patients, and insisted that he does 'not want to see anyone have to walk away from their job'.
'This is all about patient safety, we know vaccines work, we know that they reduce the risk of you being infected, so it reduces the spread of an infection,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
'People whether they are in care homes or a hospital bed, they are particularly vulnerable to this virus, it could be fatal. It is our duty to everything we can to protect them.'
Mr Javid said the public would have questioned why they did not introduce the policy, when other countries around he world have. 'I think you'd have me on the show saying 'why didn't you do anything about it?',' he said.
Comment: Note the pictures of some of the massive anti-mandate protests in Europe below; Sweden, Greece, France and Spain are pictured, but there were many, many more.
SWEDEN: Thousands of protesters in Stockholm gather, some holding placards, to protest the Swedish government's rules regarding Covid
GREECE: People hold banners, one of them reading, 'Money for health and education-stop military spending', as they demonstrate against the government's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in Athens
FRANCE: Protesters hold up signs saying 'freedom', some waving French flags while another holds up a US flag, in today's demonstration in Paris
SPAIN: A man holds up a badge saying 'the health dictatorship is modern Nazism' and a sign calling for the stopping of vaccine passports in Barcelona today
More than 52.2 million people in the UK have had their first dose, with 48.1 million having their second and 36.8 million having their third.
Some NHS chiefs have hit out at the rule to ensure all NHS workers are vaccinated as they say it may fuel a staffing shortage.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) called for the policy for NHS staff to be 'delayed with immediate effect' to avoid similar shortages among key workers.
It said the NHS 'cannot afford to lose experienced and skilled staff'.
And medical trade unions said the policy should be pushed back to give hospitals more time to persuade staff to come forward for an injection.
The Royal College of Nursing said the move 'looks set to backfire' and is 'an act of self-sabotage', while the Royal College Midwives warned compulsory vaccines will 'only see staffing levels fall further' and have a 'catastrophic impact'.
And the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS trusts in England, said hospitals' frontline staff will be pushed out of their roles, leading to 'more gaps in capacity at a time of intense pressure and patient demand'.
But Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, said vaccines are 'the best protection against the virus' and the 'overwhelming majority' of medics have already been double-jabbed.
'NHS employers will continue to support and encourage staff who have not yet been vaccinated to take up the offer of the first and second doses ahead of the April 1, when regulations come into effect,' he said.
Who says Canadians cannot, PROTEST. This will be the biggest Freedom Convoy in history, bar non !! Meanwhile in the USA truckers are doing what ?
ps. PM Trudope called the truckers, terrorists. imagine that, eh...
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as many as 150,000 Truckers headed to Ottawa,[Link]
~ Gator