I went and saw my GP not that long ago and, do you know, it never crossed my mind whether she was vaccinated against COVID or not.

I didn’t think about it at all - about her, about the other doctors in the practise, the staff - no one.

Just like when I went to visit someone the other week who had just had surgery. Whether all the doctors and nurses walking around the place were vaccinated or not - never crossed my mind.

And I reckon I’m not the only person who doesn’t even give this a thought these days.

Once upon a time, we were all over this. And yes, I was one of those people pushing the no jab/no job argument. But that was then - and this is now.

And right now, we are in a situation where the Government thinks the answer to preparing our hospital system and wider health system for winter, is to provide more services on the phone, get pharmacies to treat minor ailments, and a whole lot of other things.

In fact, there are 24 things. It’s a 24-point action plan. That’s what the Government’s calling it. They probably had 22 or 23 things but thought 24 was catchier. You know, a 24-point plan for a 24-hour health service.

One of the more curious things in the action plan - well, I reckon anyway - is the idea the Government’s got about giving ambulance paramedics access to GP or specialist medical advice.

So, how I read that, is that if something happens to you and you call St John’s - and let’s assume you’re lucky enough for them to be able to actually turn up and they’re not all parked up outside the hospital waiting to get in the door.

So you call the ambo, they arrive, and how I see this idea of the Government’s working - is that once you’re in the ambo, they’ll be able to look up your health records and, if they need to, get on the blower to a specialist.

The weird bit, is the Government is saying this is such a good idea because it may mean that people might not even have to go to hospital.

Can you imagine St John’s going for that one. They scream out to someone’s place, get them on the stretcher, load them into the ambo, drive around the block a couple of times while they make a few phone calls and look up the computer, and then drop them back home again because they work out that they don’t actually need to go to hospital.

Sounds more like Driving Miss Daisy than St John’s ambulance.

But it's all part of the 24-point action plan. But a lot of it wouldn’t be necessary if the Government just woke up to the fact that no one cares about doctors and nurses being vaccinated. Well, I don’t.

Nor does this GP up in the Bay of Plenty who is so worn-out and burnt-out, working 24/7 on his own in the small town of Murupara - he’s so worn out that he is now flying-in unvaccinated doctors to help out.

The people in his area have been waiting up to four weeks to see him and he’s had a gutsful. He’s had a gutsful personally and he’s had a gutsful on behalf of his patients.

So he’s bringing in these doctors who have refused to get vaccinated and can’t get work anywhere.

And, you know what, I reckon if it’s good enough for his neck of the woods - it should be good enough for everywhere.

Do you really think those people up north who have been waiting weeks to see their GP are saying to him ‘oh I’ll wait a bit longer so I can see you Dr Conlon. I don’t want to be seen by one of those anti-vaxxers’. Do you think they'll be saying that to him? Of course not!

They’ll be on the phone to TVNZ nominating him for a Good Sorts award or something like that. If they aren’t, they should be. Because yes, it made sense for doctors and nurses and other medical people to be vaccinated back in the day.

But it is completely irrelevant now. I can see that. Maybe you can see that too. But the Government can’t. Or maybe it can, and the mandate thing is one thing it just can’t bring itself to throw on the policy bonfire.

Well it should. Because, when push comes to shove, I don’t give two hoots whether a doctor or nurse is vaccinated against COVID. I really don’t