As the deadline approaches for Ontario long-term care workers to prove they are vaccinated against COVID-19, homes serving the Ukrainian-Canadian community are among those with the highest rates high numbers of unvaccinated staff.
It’s part of a larger trend that worries hospitals and public health officials: low vaccination rates among people of Eastern European descent.
The latest provincial data available shows that 26% of staff at the Ukrainian Canadian Care Center and Ivan Franko Homes, both located in Etobicoke, were not fully immunized last month. The rate was more than two and a half times the provincial average in the long-term care sector.
This places homes in the top 10 of Ontario’s 626 long-term care facilities for the highest proportion of unvaccinated staff, according to The data reported by the Ministry of Long-Term Care in early October.
CBC News asked the management of the two homes for updated statistics, but none responded to the request on Monday.
Staff at all long-term care homes in Ontario must prove by November 15 that they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or have a valid medical exemption or they will be barred from working in institutions.
Among the households with the highest rates of unvaccinated staff in the province were also facilities serving the Lithuanian and Polish communities. One of those homes, Copernicus Lodge in Toronto’s Roncesvalles neighborhood, had to lay off 36% of its staff when it imposed its own mandatory vaccination rule last month.
Although public health departments do not track COVID-19 vaccination statistics specifically among people of Eastern European descent, doctors are spotting signs of concern in emergency rooms.
“We have certainly seen a trend, particularly in the hospital and in our clinical work,” said Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti, infectious disease specialist and lecturer at the University of Toronto who practices in Mississauga.
“Many people come from the Eastern European community, this includes Ukrainians, Poles, the former Yugoslavia as well as Russians,” Chakrabarti said in an interview.
Some public health experts and community leaders claim that the experience of living under totalitarian regimes in the former Soviet bloc contributes to vaccine reluctance in the Eastern European diaspora in Canada.
“I have heard a lot of stories [from unvaccinated patients] which have very similar types of themes, like being forcibly vaccinated, or just having a general distrust of the government, and that those feelings can translate here, ”Chakrabarti said.
However, some leaders in the Ukrainian-Canadian community question the theory that mistrust of the government is the root of reluctance to vaccinate.
“We have heard this from people, from our community leaders who grew up under Soviet rule,” said Ihor Michalchyshyn, director general of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.
“It certainly reflects the kind of relationship the Soviet government had with its citizens in terms of imposing various kinds of measures and restricting freedoms,” Michalchyshyn said in an interview. “But I don’t feel like it’s a widespread problem at this point.”
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress, which represents approximately 1.5 million Canadians of Ukrainian descent, has led efforts to disseminate the facts about COVID-19 vaccines in the language of the community.
“Translating key posters, key documents, key videos… on television, radio, print media, we’ve done everything we can think of to get information into people’s hands”, said Michalchyshyn.
In recent days, Ukraine has reported a record for daily number of new COVID-19 infections, a phenomenon driven by one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe.
In Ontario, Long-Term Care Minister Rod Phillips acknowledged that some homes serving communities in Eastern Europe have below-average vaccination rates among staff.
“All of these homes have taken a number of steps, some in cooperation with us, others by bringing in doctors, medical professionals and, in one case, former Olympic athletes directly to speak to staff and their staff. communicating the value of the vaccine and the safety of the vaccine, ”Phillips told reporters Monday at Queen’s Park.
Every long-term care home in Ontario is required to report their staff’s immunization rates to the ministry this week, and the government will release those numbers publicly during the second week of November.
Phillips said figures for all of Ontario at the start of October showed 94 percent of long-term care staff had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 90 percent were completely vaccinated.
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