Nationally, 1309 district health board staff, from a workforce of about 80,000, have been stood down because they were not vaccinated by Monday.
Lead DHB chief executive Rosemary Clements said yesterday boards were continuing to consult with those unvaccinated staff members who had been stood down to answer any questions they might have, discuss other options such as redeployment, support them through the process and encourage them to consider vaccination.
In the Southern district the 69 staff included 28 nurses, four senior medical officers, six registered medical officers, six midwives and 25 other staff.
Those stood down made up 2% of the SDHB’s workforce.
Across the country’s DHBs, workforce stand-downs over the mandate varied from 4% to 0%.
Ms Clements said if staff chose to be vaccinated while they were stood down, they would be able to return to the DHB.
‘‘We have engaged and agreed with the health sector unions on the processes we are following.’’
Plans were in place across DHBs to minimise any effects on services.
Those included careful staff rostering and close monitoring of any areas where there might be some staff shortage.
Ms Clements said DHBs would be in a position early next week to provide an update on the numbers of staff who would be leaving the DHBs due to their unvaccinated status.
