Advocates concerned over where unvaccinated nurses will work amid mandates

Vaccine mandates for health-care workers in two provinces loom, prompting thousands of unvaccinated staff to either get the job or be forced to leave.

With several provinces now beginning to drop the hammer of COVID-19 vaccine mandates for their health-care workers, hundreds of frontline staff are opting to leave their jobs instead of getting the jab.

Over 4,000 health-care workers in B.C. were placed on unpaid leave after failing to show proof of vaccination, many of which could face being fired from their job.

Vaccine mandates for health-care workers in Alberta and Quebec are also looming, prompting thousands of unvaccinated staff to either get the job or be forced to leave.

While a provincial mandate hasn’t yet been enforced in Ontario, several hospitals and health centres have imposed vaccine mandates themselves — prompting concern from one advocacy group over where unvaccinated health-care workers can go when given the choice to leave or get the vaccine.

Dr. Doris Grinspun, the CEO of Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO), told Global News that nurses working with other unvaccinated health-care staff were not only concerned about their own safety but that of the patients as well.

“Patients do not need the burden of having unvaccinated people working with them, whether they’re nurses, doctors or PSWs or anybody else,” she said.

Grinspun’s organization has been advocating for a vaccine mandate for all health-care workers in Ontario since at least the summer and has criticized the current provincial Conservative government for not moving more swiftly on a decision to impose such a mandate given that many other provinces already have.

Her concern over the lack of a provincial mandate is deepened by not every hospital or health-care provider enforcing their own vaccine regulations, meaning that unvaccinated staff that are let go could work for providers that don’t enforce vaccinations.