Netherlands will not make Covid-19 vaccine mandatory

The Netherlands will definitely not make getting vaccinated against the coronavirus, once a Covid-19 vaccine is available, mandatory for citizens. "There is no discussion about that," a spokesperson for Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said to AD. But hospitals may ban unvaccinated care workers from working directly with patients or in certain departments like intensive care, the newspaper wrote.

Employers in the Netherlands will not be allowed to require an employee to be vaccinated. "But once there is a good vaccine, we would find it unwise and unacceptable if staff did not get it," a spokesperson for the Dutch association of hospitals NVZ said to the newspaper The NVZ thinks healthcare workers will get "compelling advice" about the vaccine. "Convince them that vaccination is safer for themselves, for patients and colleagues."

At least two hospitals told the newspaper that personnel who refuse to get vaccinated may be refused access to certain departments, like the intensive care unit. "If a small group does not opt for vaccination, you can exclude them from direct patient care. But then you have to have enough staff," Andreas Voss of the Canisius Wilhelmina Hospital in Nijmegen said to the newspaper.