Vancouver: Canadian healthcare and long-term care industries brace for staff shortages and layoffs as deadlines for vaccine mandates loom across country as unions lobby federal governments and provincial to ease difficult positions.
For hospitals and nursing homes, the labor shortage will affect an already overburdened workforce facing nearly two years of the pandemic. The uncertainty generated by immunization mandates highlights the challenges on the road to recovery.
Officials are heading into uncharted waters with warrants for mass vaccines, and it’s unclear how workers will react, said Devon Grayson, associate professor of public health at the University of British Columbia.
“A labor shortage can adversely affect the health and well-being of people,” said Grayson. “Scares”.
However, he added, “We are in an ethical position where it is also frightening not to ensure that all healthcare workers are vaccinated. So it’s a kind of trap.
To address staff shortages, at least one county offers signing bonuses for nurses. Provinces like Quebec and British Columbia have made it mandatory for healthcare workers and nurses to receive the vaccine to continue working in their respective fields.
It was also presented by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. One of the strictest vaccine mandates in the world. Last week, he said unvaccinated federal employees will be sent on unpaid leave and make COVID-19 injections mandatory for passengers on planes, trains and ships.
Layoffs are starting to appear, with a southern Ontario hospital last week sacked 57 employees, representing 2.5 percent of the workforce, after a vaccination mandate went into effect. The CBC reported that a long-term care home in Toronto put 36 percent of its employees on unpaid leave after refusing to be vaccinated.
British Columbia will put long-term care and assisted living workers on administrative leave without pay if they don’t get at least one opportunity by Monday.
The county said about 97 percent of long-term care workers in Vancouver and surrounding areas had received at least one dose by October 6. But northern British Columbia has only 89% of employees with at least one dose, although the data is still being updated.
The county recently changed the deadline, giving people more time to receive their second dose of the vaccine. “This is because we know we have very limited health care resources,” said Dr Bonnie Henry, chief medical officer for the county.
a “political” decision
Quebec is offering rewards of CA $ 15,000 to help attract and retain approximately 4,300 full-time nurses. About 25,000 healthcare workers who have not yet been fully immunized by the Oct. 15 deadline risk being suspended without pay, said Christian Dube, county health secretary.
About 97 percent of all employees at the University Health Network, which operates medical facilities in and around Toronto, Ontario, had been vaccinated by October 22, and efforts were being made to find support for others.
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