The AVs are booking appointments to deliberately miss. It might be better to scrap the appointment system and have a system whereby you could find out the length of the queue before just turning up.
I totally understand the feelings re those who don't get vaccinated, and they should have to pay for treatment etc, but where do you then draw a line? What about people who eat, smoke, drink, and take drugs to excess, and then get all sorts of diseases which need treatment?
That's the dilemma isn't it?
The difference between those things and the Covid vaccine [as I see it] is that - this is something very simple that can help immediately [more or less] to save lives, and prevent serious illness, whereas the others are long term problems which need a more gradual approach, with education, if that makes sense.
The NHS is there for everyone, so if they start 'judging' it all gets very messy. I expect many staff are fed up to the back teeth of these people though. No wonder.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I think one of the problems is that being vaccinated doesn’t stop you getting the virus or spreading it to other people. That makes it seem rather useless? I am double jabbed and caught covid in November and my fiancé is the same and was extremely unwell. I am not against vaccines and was so delighted when they began but sadly they are not living up the promise of letting life return to normal. My triple vaccinated work colleague gave me covid and my unvaccinated colleague whose husband was infected not only didn’t get it herself she didn’t seem to pass it onto anyone ( she was testing regularly) so it’s a tricky one, I don’t ask anyone their vaccination status and have no problem working with those who are unvaccinated.
Certainly really annoyed me last Christmas when a popular newspaper columnist and agony aunt, declared that she and her even more elderly mother were mixing as usual, as ‘they had decided to take responsibility for themselves’. Which I am sure wouldn’t have included refusing to accept hospital treatment, or taking up a hospital bed, if either of them had come down with Covid. Just completely selfish and not exactly joined up thinking.
Diseases caused by long term habits such as smoking, excess drinking, obesity take a long time - usually - to develop and become critical so they don't overload hospital facilities or infect staff and take them out of service.
Covid takes seconds to become infected and can be a fast killer or handicapper but such serious consequences can be avoided or at least mitigated by having the vaccine so to refuse to have it is just perverse, careless and inconsiderate.
We know from the annual behaviour of flu viruses that some people will have no symptoms at all, many will have a mild illness but others will become seriously ill and die or have serious side effects and we know the flu vaccine needs tweaking every year for likely mutations. I haven't seen any anti flu vaxxers about or people complaining about having to have the jab each year.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
How ill might you have been without it though @debs64? In hospital on a ventilator? Long Covid? Dying /dead? That's the whole point. It helps to prevent serious illness and death - whether to yourself or others, and especially to those more vulnerable, who can't help the illnesses they have.
I don't think that's 'rather useless'.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I think the right to be unvaccinated should include the responsibility of paying for their care when they do get infected and take up hospital resources from people who have less avoidable needs for medical expertise and time.
Same for parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids against measles, mumps, rubella, polio, diphtheria, smallpox and all the other diseases that needlessly kill or maim people who are unprotected, including babies too young to have been offered those vaccines. Utterly irresponsible.
I have much sympathy with this sentiment but it’s an awkward path to tread. Do we ask hill climbers who fall and break bones to pay for their treatment? It was their choice to go up the mountain. Who should pay for footballers’ care if they experience dementia? Nobody insisted you got pregnant so you won’t mind paying your own medical expenses, will you?
Once you start judging you’re in a moral maze (but I still would like to financially clout the anti- vaxxers).
I did my first stint of volunteer stewarding at a vaccination centre the other day and was surprised to see a fairly heavy security presence. Then that evening I saw the news with the anti-vax demo when that awful woman tipped a load of test kits into a wheely bin rendering them useless. I then understood why they considered security necessary at vaccination centres.
Fortunately, we saw no anti-vaxxers but they have definitely been shoving lots of leaflets through doors in this area😡
Regarding missed appts: We had a lot people turn up as walk-ins because there was a 12 hour window 7 days a week, during which they could roll up whenever they were either in the mood or happened to be passing and during a period when they were off work without much else to do.
Quite a few of these people had appts at a GP surgery for later in the week or the next week but they seized the opportunity to get an earlier, more convenient jab. I don't know whether many of them will have thought to or been able to cancel their later (now unneeded) appt. That scenario could also explain the number of no-shows. Certainly a friend of mine couldn't work out how she could actually cancel her appt. after she got an earlier walk-in jab.
Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
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What about people who eat, smoke, drink, and take drugs to excess, and then get all sorts of diseases which need treatment?
That's the dilemma isn't it?
The difference between those things and the Covid vaccine [as I see it] is that - this is something very simple that can help immediately [more or less] to save lives, and prevent serious illness, whereas the others are long term problems which need a more gradual approach, with education, if that makes sense.
The NHS is there for everyone, so if they start 'judging' it all gets very messy. I expect many staff are fed up to the back teeth of these people though. No wonder.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Covid takes seconds to become infected and can be a fast killer or handicapper but such serious consequences can be avoided or at least mitigated by having the vaccine so to refuse to have it is just perverse, careless and inconsiderate.
We know from the annual behaviour of flu viruses that some people will have no symptoms at all, many will have a mild illness but others will become seriously ill and die or have serious side effects and we know the flu vaccine needs tweaking every year for likely mutations. I haven't seen any anti flu vaxxers about or people complaining about having to have the jab each year.
That's the whole point. It helps to prevent serious illness and death - whether to yourself or others, and especially to those more vulnerable, who can't help the illnesses they have.
I don't think that's 'rather useless'.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Once you start judging you’re in a moral maze (but I still would like to financially clout the anti- vaxxers).
Fortunately, we saw no anti-vaxxers but they have definitely been shoving lots of leaflets through doors in this area😡
Regarding missed appts: We had a lot people turn up as walk-ins because there was a 12 hour window 7 days a week, during which they could roll up whenever they were either in the mood or happened to be passing and during a period when they were off work without much else to do.
Quite a few of these people had appts at a GP surgery for later in the week or the next week but they seized the opportunity to get an earlier, more convenient jab. I don't know whether many of them will have thought to or been able to cancel their later (now unneeded) appt. That scenario could also explain the number of no-shows. Certainly a friend of mine couldn't work out how she could actually cancel her appt. after she got an earlier walk-in jab.