Since Sunday April 24, nurses have the right to vaccinate people over 16, without prior medical prescription. This measure also concerns pharmacists and midwives. It had been demanded for several months by the Order of Nurses and the unions of the profession.
The government validated this week the extension of vaccination skills for nurses, pharmacists and midwives. Since Sunday April 24, practitioners who have proven themselves during the Covid-19 epidemic can vaccinate people over the age of 16, without prior medical prescription. Nurses in particular will be able to give injections to adults against fifteen diseases. Including influenza, tetanus, poliomyelitis, rabies, human papillomavirus, hepatitis (A and B), pneumococcus and meningococci (A, B, C, Y and W).
A first step towards more autonomy for nurses
As far as pharmacists are concerned, the list of vaccines is the same. Except that patients will have to present a medical prescription. Practitioners will however wait for a favorable opinion from the drug agency. This has already been seized in this sense by the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran. The green light is hoped for by next fall.
Midwives can also prescribe and administer vaccines. Precisely in pregnant women, newborns and people around them. For Patrick Chamboredon, president of the order of nurses, this decision constitutes a “first step towards more autonomy for the profession” and for “fellow citizens”. It would also represent “the guarantee of enhanced access to prevention”.
A right acquired in 2008 against the flu epidemic
It should be noted that the Order of Nurses and the unions of the profession have been demanding this extension for several months. They denounced the discrimination against liberal nurses, who would depend totally on doctors. A decree excluded them from prescribing the vaccine, even though they have the skills to do so. The Order of Nurses had also asked the public authorities for independence in the allocation of vaccine allocations.
The extension of nurses’ prerogatives should considerably accelerate vaccination coverage. For example among isolated people, to whom only liberal nurses can move. This right to vaccinate without medical prescription was all the more necessary since it had been acquired in a similar situation, in 2008 against the flu epidemic. The government then extended this right to the first injection in 2018.
The Covid still present
If the war in Ukraine and the French presidential election overshadowed the virus in the media, the Covid-19 remains omnipresent in France. According to the Ministry of Health, there have been 144,799 deaths due to the pandemic as of April 21, 2022, including 18,000 since December 2021. These latest deaths are largely linked to Omicron variants, said to be mild. In terms of vaccination, more than 54 million people have received at least one injection as of April 21, 2022. This makes around 80% of the French population.