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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-04-29 Daily Xml
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Influenza Vaccinations

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (14:36): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Health and Wellbeing a question regarding public health.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.E. HANSON: On Monday morning the Premier was asked on radio whether visitors to aged-care facilities were required to get flu vaccinations. The Premier replied, 'No, I think that might be in place in terms of workers but not for visitors.' The government's own COVID-19 website states that:

From 1 May 2020, you cannot enter an aged care facility if you have not been vaccinated against the 2020 seasonal influenza.

The website then repeats this message and actually states in bold and underlined 'all staff and visitors are included'. That direction came into effect at 8.45am on 21 April. My questions to the minister are:

1. Based on the expert health advice, do visitors to aged-care facilities need to be vaccinated against influenza?

2. What assurances exist that all aged-care workers in state government-run aged-care facilities will actually have a flu shot by this Friday?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:38): What a cowardly explanation which then doesn't even get referenced in the question. If you want to accuse the Premier of misleading people, then at least have credit to put it in your question. The fact of the matter is that the Premier was completely right. Monday was Monday 27 April; Friday 1 May is after 27 April. On 27 April people did not need to be vaccinated to enter residential aged-care facilities.

As the Hon. Frank Pangallo highlighted yesterday, this government will not tolerate improper use of restrictions to block access to residential aged-care facilities. The Premier was highlighting the point that some people had been using the influenza vaccination factor and blaming the government for its restriction for blocking access. The fact of the matter is that the national cabinet, in its wisdom, gave an appropriate time frame within which residential aged-care staff and residents could be vaccinated and, for that matter, visitors too.

In terms of the program, the latest update I have in terms of vaccination for flu in residential aged-care facilities I admit is 10 days old but, at that time, it was very encouraging. At that stage 60 per cent of staff had been vaccinated and 62 per cent of residents. Of course their program for vaccination has been ongoing since then, so I am not expecting a major disruption in terms of the transition from the non-mandatory recommendation to have flu vaccine to the mandatory element that starts on 1 May.

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