LAST UPDATE | 11 Feb 2021

HSE BOSS PAUL Reid has said he was “quite shocked” to hear of at least one GP refusing to administer Covid vaccine doses to patients. 

Reid was asked several questions from journalists at a HSE press conference this afternoon in relation to a segment on RTÉ’s Liveline today which featured a statement from a doctor who said he would not administer the vaccine.

Reid said the HSE will make “alternative arrangements” for patients of any doctor who refuses to administer the vaccine. 

GP Dr Gerard Waters of Whitethorn Clinic in Celbridge has described himself as ‘a conscientious objector’.

He confirmed to Liveline that he will not be administering the Covid 19 vaccines, and that he does not refer his patents for Covid tests.  

He added he will not stand in the way of his patients getting the vaccine elsewhere, but he says it is now up to the HSE to sort vaccines for these patients.

Dr Waters said he tells patients that he wouldn’t put anything in their arms that he wouldn’t put it in his own and said he disagrees with how the Covid virus has been handled by authorities. 

Liveline also featured patients of the Kildare-based doctor, who described their “shock” to Joe Duffy at his approach to the vaccine. 

Another doctor who featured on the show said that he had his concerns over the vaccine and said that his views have made him a “pariah” in the medical community. However, that doctor said he would give the jab once he had gone through consent forms with his patients and outlined the details about the vaccine. 

Speaking this evening, Professor Karina Butler, Chair of the National Immunisation Advisory Committee  said:

“I think that anyone who wants to get the vaccine should be able to get the vaccine. Obviously I can’t speak to whatever the individual circumstance was. But if that should arise that a physician would for whatever reason, maybe not feel competent to administer the vaccine…certainly that patient will be accommodated elsewhere and there would be no problem with that patient’s vaccine.”