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HSE confirms prison nurses will be vaccinated as frontline healthcare workers - but timeline remains unclear

Some prison nurses were told they would not be included in the healthcare worker stage of the vaccine roll-out at all.

HSE BOSS PAUL Reid has written to the Irish Prison Service (IPS) to assure the organisation that prison nurses will be vaccinated as frontline healthcare workers, TheJournal.ie understands, but when exactly this process will begin remains unknown.

It’s believed that some prison nurses were informed that they would not be included in this stage of the vaccine roll-out when other healthcare workers are being vaccinated and would have to wait until key workers were called, despite their frontline duties.

The Department of Health – which has responsibility for deciding the allocation of vaccines – confirmed that group two of the vaccine roll-out includes frontline healthcare workers (HCWs) in direct patient contact roles, but did not respond to queries on whether this includes prison nurses.

As well as providing treatment for prisoners who are Covid positive, nurses employed by the IPS carry out daily swabbing of prisoners.

This includes meeting new committals on arrival and swabbing them before they are placed into isolation, as well as regular prison-wide swabbing if there is an outbreak.

There are currently a small number of outbreaks in Irish prisons.

However, nurses and other staff have been largely successful at keeping Covid out of Irish prison, with no confirmed cases among the prison population during the first wave.

The first stage of the vaccine roll-out has been progressing rapidly among frontline healthcare workers in other settings, but it is understood that a lack of a firm timeline on when prison nurses will receive their first dose is causing concern among staff.

“We were told we weren’t included in the first roll-out plan at all,” one nurse, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

“We have been working throughout the pandemic, focusing on just getting on with it, but this makes us feel like we’re not being treated with the same respect as our colleagues in hospitals.”

Gabriel Keaveny, assistant general secretary of the Prison Officers Association, said any decision to delay the vaccination the prison nurses could have “catastrophic” consequences.

“We only have 120 nurses, so if there’s an outbreak in any of the healthcare areas our resources are depleted very, very quickly,” he said.

Keaveny added that once vaccination is completed among priority groups – frontline healthcare workers and those most at risk of severe illness from Covid-19 – that prison officers should be strongly considered as one of the next groups to inoculate.

“There’s only a finite number of prison officers. There’s no private sector which we can call on [in the event of an outbreak]. When there are outbreaks in prisons, there are critical staffing shortfalls almost immediately.
“It’s also an institutional setting, so where there is an outbreak, it spreads extremely quickly.”

The Irish Times reported that the IPS had contacted health officials requesting that prisoners be vaccinated ahead of the general population, due to a high rate of underlying conditions and the potential for prisons to be “reservoirs” of disease.

Prisoners, prison nurses, and prison officers are not explicitly mentioned in Ireland’s vaccination strategy and implementation plan.

The HSE said all priority groups will be inoculated as supplies of vaccines become available.

Paul Reid told a media briefing this week that the HSE is ‘unfortunately not able to give a level of predictability around the vaccine for each of the various cohorts of the sequencing right now’, nothing that the exact timing of deliveries is not covered by the vaccine purchase agreements in place.

“Unfortunately at this point in time we’re not able to give people predictability right now of what month, what week, what cohorts we will be doing, but we are planning on those mobilisation efforts.”

A spokesperson for the Irish Prison Service said the Department of Health is “making the overall determinations on the vaccine policy and the schedule for delivery of the vaccine”.

At the time of publication, the Department of Health had not confirmed if prison nurses would be classed under Group 2, although provided a general statement on vaccine rollout.

“The aim of the Covid-19 vaccination programme is to ensure, over time, that vaccine will become available to vaccinate all of those for whom the vaccine is indicated,” it read.

“Given that there will be initially limited vaccines available, it will take some time for all to receive those vaccines and that has necessitated an allocation strategy to ensure that those most at risk of death and serious illness receive the vaccine first.
“All of the groups will be covered as further vaccine supplies become available and the immunisation programme is rolled out nationally. The evidence will be kept under review and the allocation groups may be updated, where necessary, in light of new evidence.”

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    Mute Tony Stamper
    Favourite Tony Stamper
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    Sep 7th 2011, 12:13 PM

    Merkel – Germany and France wanted the Euro, even though economist after economist pointed out the massive flaws in it, the fatal contradictions, benefited massively from replacing the DM with a weaker currency, leading to a massive export boon for your state.

    Your country made it, ignored the economic reality, and now you aren’t willing to accept responsibility for the mess that was always inevitable. You are playing internal German political games to benefit yourself, and taking economic decisions at an EU level, to benefit Germany alone.

    European Union – My ass!

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    Mute Sean McGrath
    Favourite Sean McGrath
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    Sep 7th 2011, 12:31 PM

    Tony, you are definitely right but its up to us to play the same game which we were trying to do but we got way to far ahead of ourselves, prices went too high on everything, wages went too high, everything went too high. I can remember national news celebrating that we were spending a billion a week a few yrs ago. Can’t blame ze Germans for that or the house prices….

    One thing we can take from this debacle is that the ECB is in Frankfurt for a reason and they are only looking out for Germany and France so we need to watch our own back from now on and play a smarter game.

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    Mute Neil
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    Sep 7th 2011, 3:21 PM

    @tony

    While there’s nothing more Irish than blaming others for our problems, it’s not really Germanys fault we are in the mess we are in. And I can understand German taxpayers not wanting to bailout countries like Ireland. The Finns hate that as well.

    Finland is a small country as well, and they have the euro, and they didn’t build up a huge governement expenditure on a property bubble.

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    Mute Gis Bayertz
    Favourite Gis Bayertz
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    Sep 7th 2011, 6:23 PM

    Spot on, Tony

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    Mute Sean O'Keeffe
    Favourite Sean O'Keeffe
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    Sep 7th 2011, 2:00 PM

    In the early eighteenth century, to develop its new colonies France issued a fiat currency under the guidance of the Scot, John Law. This currency was shortlived and imploded with the Mississippi bubble.
    While many people lost heavily, one canny Irishman, Richard Cantilion, pulled out of the project before its demise.
    Like Cantillon, Ireland would be well advised to consider what its best options are and not leave it too late.
    http://mises.org/daily/4709

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    Mute Sean O'Keeffe
    Favourite Sean O'Keeffe
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    Sep 7th 2011, 2:07 PM

    In the early Eighteenth century, to develop its colonies France issued a fiat currency under the guidance of Scot, John Law. This currency was shortlived and implode with the bust of the Mississippi bubble.
    Many people lost heavily. However, one canny Irishman, Richard Cantillon, who had been heavily involved withdrew before the project collapsed.
    Like Cantillon, Ireland would be well advised to see where his fiat currency project is going and not leave it too late to leave.
    http://mises.org/daily/4709

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