An unvaccinated surgeon will not be allowed to return to practice unless he receives his first vaccine dose after he failed to circumvent Victoria’s compulsory COVID-19 vaccination rules for healthcare workers. 

Last week the doctor was refused a temporary exemption from vaccination, which he had applied for pending a hearing to have the state’s vaccine mandate quashed.

Under the state’s public health directions, healthcare workers were required to have their first dose of the vaccine by 29 October and to be fully vaccinated by 15 December.

The general surgeon, who works at a private hospital in the state’s northwest, is one of 129 people, including nurses, teachers and construction workers, fighting occupational vaccine mandates in the Supreme Court of Victoria.