Today, BBC Radio 5 Live’s Your Call program asked listeners what they thought of making vaccines mandatory for people working in health and social care.
The government is considering making vaccination of health professionals in England mandatory. Fewer health-care workers received vaccines than any other priority group.
Carer Kathy said it should be mandatory because “it is saving people’s lives”.
“You must have this scam to get a job, because if you don’t, you can go in and kill people,” she said.
Carer Sarah thinks that forcing the vaccine on a healthy population is totally wrong.
“If I had any symptoms, I obviously wouldn’t be working on the front lines,” she added.
Lindsey works as a nurse and explained that part of her contract when she joined the NHS was to receive a hepatitis B vaccine and have blood tests for chickenpox and measles immunity.
“As an NHS nurse, I think it is your duty to get up and be told about it,” she said.
Karen’s father is in a nursing home. She says that he is incredibly fragile.
“As a family, we have no right to know whether there are employees in the asylum who have not been vaccinated,” she said. “So it gives us the choice of whether or not it is safe for him to stay there.”
Labor lawyer Adam Pavey said it is too early to say how the courts can interpret the arguments, but employers would have to balance “people’s individual rights to not be discriminated against and then the broader rights of other team members. ”.
Listen on the free BBC Sounds app.