Half of medical workers not yet vaccinated against Covid-19

At least half of the medical staff in hospitals has not yet been vaccinated against Covid-19, BNR reported after discussing the situation with many of the larger hospitals in the country. Despite as many as 90 percent of their employees willing to get a jab, vaccines are delivered in small quantities which has caused logistic issues for already-strained healthcare institutions.

The number of healthcare workers without a vaccination is roughly between 40 and 60 percent. According to BNR, hospitals do not have enough vaccines available for their staff members who are eligible for a shot. For that reason, many hospitals need to make choices and give priority to employees with direct patient contact.

When vaccines are available, hospitals receive them in small quantities which creates “a major logistics puzzle, demanding a lot in capacity and organization within an already heavily burdened system dealing with continuous increased pressure for 15 months,” according to the ZGT hospital group in the east of the country.

Stella Salden, chair of the healthcare workers union Nu'91 also said that the number of vaccinated healthcare professionals is far too small. "When healthcare is under such pressure, the people who provide this care should also be the first to be given the choice to get vaccinated," she said.

Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam also said they were not happy with the speed of the vaccination process among their medical workers. The hospital received one large delivery of vaccines at the beginning of this year and after that vaccines came in at significantly slower rates.

Employees are therefore still vulnerable, thus increasing the risk of workers who are unavailable due to illness, said the hospital's vaccination program manager, Michael van der Voorden.