A six-months pregnant Brisbane nurse has been sacked two years after being stood down for refusing to get vaccinated for Covid-19.
Ella King, 29, was terminated from her job at Queensland Children’s Hospital at Christmas for failing to comply with the Queensland vaccine mandate, despite it being lifted late last year.
“I loved my job and saw myself nursing at QCH for the rest of my working life (potentially the next 35 years),” she wrote on Facebook.
“People believe that the mandates have dropped but they have continued to terminate nurses since 25th September 2023 when the mandate was supposedly revoked and sadly will continue to do so (1200 sacked and counting).”
Ms King chose not to get vaccinated after witnessing co-workers suffer bad reactions to the jabs, she told the Courier Mail.
“I have more than 30 years of nursing ahead of me. Didn’t the Health Minister announce that there was a shortage of nurses in the state and it is likely to get worse as so many nurses are nearing retirement?”
Health Minister Shannon Fentiman warned in October last year Queensland required 40,000 new health workers over the next 10 years, and said that 11 per cent of the workforce were over 60.
A Children’s Health Queensland spokesperson said he could not comment on Ms King’s individual situation, but said that disciplinary action for taken for failing to follow employment conditions, not for refusing to get vaccinated
In its final Covid-19 vaccine safety report on November 2, the Therapeutic Goods Administration noted 139,654 adverse event reports – one for every 500 doses – including 14 deaths.
