An unvaccinated family carer who lost her funding to care for her own son said the mandates “felt like a gun to my head”.
She is one of five affected people who took their case to the High Court, challenging the mandates which meant they could not receive caregiver funding without being vaccinated against Covid-19.
Justice Gerard van Bohemen has released a declaration that then-Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins’ decision to include family carers in the mandate was “invalid” because “it was not a decision that was available to the Minister on the basis of the information that was before him at the time”.
One anonymous caregiver said “it felt so wrong that I could not live in my house, caring for my son, and have the life we had, unless I was vaccinated. To have someone in an office, who had never met us and didn’t know our situation, make this law, felt like a gun to my head.”