Dr Richard Janus, Senior Medical Officer at NPA Family and Community Services in Injinoo is worried. 

He’s worried that a large group of people in the NPA region have fallen victim to vaccine misinformation. 

“So unfortunately, there’s a core here of people, which is more than 50 per cent who aren’t getting vaccinated,” Dr Janus said. 

“For me that’s incredibly worrying because now that I’ve got myself vaccinated and I’m going to survive.  

“But I really don’t want to be looking at my patients, who I love, dying from it.”  

Dr Janus said he personally made the choice to get vaccinated because he doesn’t want to die! 

“And cause I’m in a high-risk group,” he said.  

“And I also feel a duty to be in good condition and able to stand up and help the community here.” 

He added that the COVID-19 pandemic has taken up a lot of hospital resources which means other people in the community aren’t as able to access health care. 

“The sooner we get over this COVID situation and get everybody vaccinated, the sooner we can get back to normal.  

“We know that people are getting less preventive health care done during this epidemic.  

“And we’ve had hundreds of people literally who haven’t been able to get to Cairns for help that they need because everything’s being squashed by COVID.” 

Dr Janus has a stark warning for people who are unsure about the COVID-19 jab too. 

“I’ll just say outright, this is a disease now in Australia of unvaccinated people.   

“That vaccinated people are not ending up in the ICU.  

“It’s only people that don’t have their vaccine.” 

For more information contact NPA Family and Community Services.