Health Sector Leader Supports Mandatory Vaccination

New Zealand Health Group welcome the government’s move to make vaccination mandatory for our Home & Community Support Services sector.

New Zealand Health Group Chief Executive Josephine Gagan says, “It’s the best protection for our sector’s frontline workforce and the thousands of vulnerable people they support in our communities every day – the elderly, and people with chronic health conditions, disability, or injury.”

As the largest network of health providers in the sector, the Group have been preparing for this move and have already carried out substantial work together with the employment unions.

“To date in this pandemic, our people have done an incredible job of keeping themselves and our clients safe,“ says Josephine.

“While we are supportive of the move, we do have some concerns. Given the short lead time to inform our 10,000 staff who fall into this category, and implement vaccinations for those not already vaccinated, pressure could come on retention of our workforce.

“As we wait for further guidance from the government, we will continue to encourage and urge our workforce to make time to get vaccinated; mandatory vaccination is the right thing to do and we are looking forward to hearing more details from the government to enable our sector to comply in the time required.”

The COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Order 2021 requires the workforce to be fully vaccinated by 1 December 2021.

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