NSW HCWs United

Welcome to all the newcomers!!

500+ people willing to take a stand and hold the line! For too long we have handed over our personal and sensitive information with no questions asked.

Now we say enough is enough. My religion, sexuality, and medical information is private!

It doesn't matter what your intention is, it's private. We don't need to know.

If your manager or co-workers begin discussing the vaccination with you, or try to pressure you into getting it, they are clearly working outside their scope of practice.

Hold the line!

NB: I'm organising a Zoom with Freedom Advocates to discuss this in more detail. If you're interested in attending, please complete the poll above so we have an idea of numbers.

Good Morning,

Last night, leaders from frontline industries across Victoria and New South Wales linked in with Freedom Advocates to further discuss our rights under the Privacy Act 1988, and what exciting things they are working on.

Please see below some key points:

Personal & Sensitive Information:
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has declared your vaccination status as sensitive information under the Privacy Act 1988.

“Consent must be freely given and constitute valid consent. This means that your employer cannot pressure or intimidate you to provide information about your vaccination status.”
https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/covid-19/covid-19-vaccinations-and-my-privacy-rights-as-an-employee/

Non-Disclosure:
By now you should have pulled yourself behind privacy by issuing your non-disclosure letter/s. If you have sent your employer a Declination letter, please contact Freedom Advocates so they can discuss with you what your next steps are and how to utilise privacy.

Self-disclosure now must be taken down from your social media. This includes any profile picture borders etc. Everyone is entitled to opinion, but your medical information is to now become private information.

Termination:
If you have been terminated from your position due to your vaccination status or political beliefs, please contact Freedom Advocates and provide any corresponding documentation/evidence. They will support you, as it is unlawful termination.

LGAs of concern:
By now you should have booked your vaccination in for the 19th September (or as close to), as tomorrow you are now asked to carry that evidence with you.

Once you have a booking, any further information is now private. This is a conversation between you and your GP.

Templates:
We ask that you do not share the templates provided to you by Freedom Advocates. They assess your individual situation and send through what is appropriate for you.

What’s next?
We would like to organise a Zoom with Freedom Advocates for this group. We will post a poll shortly so we can get an idea of numbers and go from there.

#holdtheline

Update:

We have officially linked in with Freedom Advocates and will be following their advice moving forward. One of the key messages passed on was to pull back behind PRIVACY.

If you haven’t already, please email freedomadvocates@protonmail.com When you email them, please provide the following:

Subject line: First Name, Occupation, State
Message Body:
- Company/Department
- Union if represented
- Area of concern – Brief outline/description of issue – tell them if it is urgent
- Contact number in case they need to clarify a situation or get you supported sooner

Freedom Advocates will get back to you with an information pack. It is important you read the information provided and get your head around Privacy – as all your responses when being asked should always default to privacy.

Your Religion, Sexuality and Medical Information is PRIVATE.

Send out the template which best applies to you, and if you do not receive a response in 3 full business days, send the follow up letter. There is also a Breach of Privacy template which can also be utilised after the follow up letter.

Leave Approvals: there is no black and white answer to this. They are within rights to decline leave re organisational needs. However, if stood down at the end of the month, you are entitled to access your leave. If terminated, your leave will be paid out. This appears to be a tactic, and we completely understand the stress this is causing.

Unions: Freedom Advocates are working on something as we speak. Hopefully they will be in touch with us re a Union who will fully support us moving forward. That way we can ditch the ones who aren’t serving us and throw our support behind a Union who will. I should have more on this in the coming days.

I know this feels like the same information, but it’s important information. Your privacy is important, and the Privacy Act 1988 will help support you during this time.

Freedom Advocates have also launched an Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/freedom.advocates/

Hi Team,

It's come to my attention that more information has been updated and changed via the Health Website. This link is for all NSW Health Clinicians, and as current as Friday 3rd Sept.

It states that Health are not requiring staff to be vaccinated, yet strongly encouraged.

https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/vaccine/Pages/clinicians.aspx

Hi team,

There have been concerns around Annual Leave and Long Service Leave not being approved and accessed post 30th September.

I'm hoping to find out more re what this looks like for us. If anyone has any more information, please post in this thread.

Cheers!

Happy Monday! Just an update:

We have linked in with other industry leaders, and more specifically other health leaders, over the last few days.

We hope to have an action plan tailored to HCWs in the coming days. As you can imagine, work and family always come into play whilst trying to organise all of this.

We always welcome ideas and initiatives within this group, and aim to bring everyone together to find what works for us.

At this stage we still encourage everyone to reach out to Freedom Advocates: freedomadvocates@protonmail.com to obtain their information/template pack and move forward on sending those letters out.

Good news is that the deadline was moved for those in LGAs of concern. Very cheeky of them to put it up on their website, but we can work with that.

Thank you to everyone who did the poll. We have a better understanding of who is in our group here. Its still open if you haven't yet selected your profession.

We also understand we have quite a number of people in the affected LGAs of concern as well, and our deadline is coming up sooner than other industries, and appreciate the urgency.

Thank you all!

Happening as we speak. AFL Solicitors on IG.

Reminder:

Fill in the poll above so we know who is who, and how we can help. If your profession isn't there and you have to select 'other', let us know in the comments what you do.

Let us know if you've been affected by the Monday 6th September deadline.