In south-east Queensland, a retirement community operator has imposed a no-jab, no-work policy for tradesmen, gardeners, and other contractors who operate at the village.
The regulation, which went into effect on September 1st, will apply to up to 50 contractors that operate at the Springwood community each month.
According to Elements Retirement Living managing director Chiou See Anderson, the village's five staff members and almost all of its 190 residents are already vaccinated.
According to her, the organisation decided to require the COVID-19 vaccination for contractors to better safeguard employees and residents in the neighbourhood.
Ms Anderson said that tradies that come into my community, in my opinion, do not only labour in my village. They also operate in the larger community - they are present everywhere. And if there is going to be a super spreader incident, forget about elderly individuals who you can easily recognise.
If the employees that come into the community are vaccinated, they have an additional line of defence in terms of safeguarding our residents.
She said that the strategy has been well received by the village's contractors.
Ms Anderson said that if she gets pushback, she'll select someone else who wants to get vaccinated since she is out there buying services.
The regulation has also allowed certain contracting firms, which are mostly small companies, to initiate a vaccine discussion with their workers.
She added that instead of forcing [the vaccination] for its employees, their discussions are, ‘look, they're now needing you to get vaccinated to work at Elements Retirement Village.
So it relieves them of the burden of having a tough discussion with their tradespeople.
Marc Melville, the owner of Luzac Plumbing, said he backed the idea.
He said that he believes that when giving services to older Australians, you need to do all you can to safeguard your customers, therefore he thinks it's fantastic that Elements is taking this additional precaution.
Ms Anderson said that she is in favour of making the COVID-19 vaccination obligatory for retirement home workers, just as it is in residential aged care.
Because retirement communities are designed for independent living, there is no large workforce.
She said that they employ contractors because it is more convenient. So, in most retirement communities, you'd be fortunate to have one village manager and maybe one groundskeeper. The remainder of the individuals arriving are contract workers. So achieving a 100% immunisation rate isn't that difficult.
Ms Anderson added that for other retirement living providers interested in mandating the vaccine for contractors, an initial conversation with staff is key. If the staff is not supportive of this… [and] if the staff do not walk the talk, then your contractors are not going to do it.
