To ensure broad vaccination, politics must be separated from medicine - medical association

RIGA - To ensure broad vaccination against Covid-19, politics must be separated from medicine, leaving public education and immunization entirely to healthcare professionals in strict compliance with international and national law and principles of medical ethics, the Latvian Medical Association believes. 

The association's president Ilze Aizsilniece told LETA that the government must place trust in healthcare professionals whose top priority is public health and safety. "Medics, and not advertising campaigns and lotteries, are the best at providing science-based information and convincing people about the necessity of vaccination. State support and financing therefore should be allocated to healthcare employees," Aizsilniece said. 

The board of the medical association indicates that any vaccination is a serious medical manipulation, which is why it should been carried out primarily at family physicians' practices, clinics and hospitals. The decision to get vaccinated has to be taken individually after consulting a doctor and assessing each patient's health condition and ensuring proper post-vaccination supervision. 

According to the association, the vaccination process should be conducted pragmatically and with the patients' informed consent. 

"The Latvian Medical Association is calling on people to follow the example of Latvia's physicians and choose vaccination as currently the safest, most effective and research-based way to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. At the same time, the Latvian Medical Association would show understanding and support to those people who need more time to decide in favor of vaccination," said the association's board member Viesturs Boka. 

According to a survey by Riga Stradins University (RSU), nearly 77 medical employees in Latvia support vaccination against Covid-19. The Latvian Medical Association's data on Latvia's largest hospitals suggest that the share of vaccinated physicians exceeds 90 percent already.