ProCare Joins Growing List Of Organisations Calling For Frontline Workers To Be Vaccinated

ProCare, New Zealand’s largest network of primary healthcare professionals, has today joined the growing number of organisations across Aotearoa who are calling for all frontline healthcare workers to be vaccinated.

Bindi Norwell, Group CEO at ProCare says: "The call to see all frontline workers vaccinated is about protecting medical professionals and the patients they are seeing. Ultimately, it’s about doing everything we can to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and ensure Aotearoa can return to a sense of ‘normality’ as quickly as possible.

"Whilst infection controls, such as wearing PPE and streaming patients, are important; it’s just one of the many tools that can be used to protect patients - especially for those patients that fall into the vulnerable category," she continues.

"In our view, when it comes to preventing the highly transmissible Delta variant, we need to be pursuing a "PPE and vaccination" strategy, not a "PPE or vaccination" strategy," points out Norwell.

ProCare has had feedback from its patients that by knowing the doctors, nurses and practice managers at their general practice are vaccinated, that it will provide them with them with much higher levels of confidence that they’re in a safe environment.

"As we saw with last year’s lockdown, people are holding off visiting their general practice unless they feel they really have to which isn’t good for ongoing levels of healthcare. So, if patients know that any member of staff they come into contact with at their general practice is vaccinated, it means that they will be much more comfortable seeing their doctor or practice nurse about wider health issues," she concludes.

ProCare has created a ‘one stop shop’ for anyone who has questions or concerns around the COVID-19 vaccination. This can be found on ProCare's public website.

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