2023-05-28 04:50:00
Despite the end of the vaccination obligation, a significant part of the suspended caregivers have not yet returned to their jobs.
By HR with AFP
© Valéria Mongelli/ Hans Lucas via AFP
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LThere are many retrainings: some have become specialists in well-being, others sell on the markets, still others have chosen to combine odd jobs to live decently. Some caregivers had refused to be vaccinated against Covid-19 and had found themselves suspended from their posts. For the time being, many of them have not returned to work in the hospital as they have been able to do in recent weeks.
“It’s not exactly the same, it has buttons, it’s a little prettier. It looks a little less like pajamas but it’s still white,” she smiles as she massages a client’s face. Today, with a degree in maderotherapy, eyelash care, lymphatic drainage and baby massage, she “takes care of people” as she sees fit.
“Like plague victims”
The 30-year-old, who was suspended in September 2021, assures that she was not against the vaccine, but that she did not want to be vaccinated at this time. “With my spouse, we have had a baby project for a few years but we can’t get there. We were going to start a battery of tests at the end of 2021 and my gynecologist advised me against the vaccine at that time, ”explains the young woman, who is still not vaccinated.
She did try to convince her superiors, but “there was no exception, I was devastated. We really wanted to wait for this project to work before getting vaccinated, ”says the young woman, who still has hope of procreating, with tears in her eye. Infected by the virus in March 2022, she did not wish to return despite her recovery certificate. Very quickly, Élodie Schlernitzauer, who was a nursing assistant for twelve years, understood that she would not return to work at the hospital.
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“Financially, I have the same salary as before, with less gas costs and the possibility of doing my planning. I’m lucky, it works very well and I’m very proud of it,” says the young woman. Stéphane Escafit, 46, hesitated until the last moment to resume his position as stretcher-bearer. Converted to the Strasbourg markets, where he sells sausages and charcuterie from the South-West, he was one of the few non-vaccinated members of his team.
“It is a vaccine which was in the experimental phase, which came very quickly, I did not have confidence”, justifies this father of two children. His suspension left him with a bitter taste: “What annoyed me was that when everyone was confined, we were supposedly heroes and overnight we were considered plague victims. »
“I was robbed of my dream job”
In mid-May, he put his overalls back on and went back to the hospital… where he finally asked for his leave on the same day in order to continue his new activity on the markets, even if the salary is a little less attractive. Stéphane Escafit indeed fears being suspended again in the event of the return of the Covid-19. “The vaccination obligation has not been repealed, so if I resume my activity, there is no proof that I will not find myself suspended again in six or seven months”, he fears. The government indeed keeps the possibility of suspending again, by a new decree, the non-vaccinated if the pandemic starts again. It is therefore with a “little pang in the heart” that he moves away from this profession, exercised for seventeen years, to devote himself fully to his new activity as a trader: “Back on the markets on Saturday morning, I I have lots of patients… uh, lots of clients, waiting for me! »
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Éric Mercier, 52, a nurse in a private establishment in Pays de la Loire, is one of the few to have returned to work. Since the vaccination obligation imposed on caregivers at the end of 2021, he had to combine jobs to make ends meet. He thus worked in the food industry, the construction industry, or was even a forklift operator, “with the fear of bailiffs and of not having work the next day”. The 50-year-old assures that there were no cross looks from his colleagues for his return, even if “there will certainly be some. But I come back with my head held high, I always wanted to treat, I had been robbed of my dream job. »
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