Lifted COVID-19 mandates may improve rural ER staffing in north

Written By Tania Finch
Published

“We encourage anyone who can work in the healthcare system to do so.”

––Adrian Dix


Four years and four months after the COVID-19 pandemic began, British Columbia’s provincial health officer ended the public-health emergency and rescinded all remaining orders, including the mandatory vaccine mandate.

“We are now at the point where I am confident, we can continue to manage COVID-19 without the need for the public-health emergency,” B.C.’s Public Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said at a press conference last week.

Henry said it had become clear to her over the previous week that COVID-19 was no longer a threat to public health. In the early months of the pandemic, many public health orders were imposed in an effort to “flatten the curve” of rising COVID-19 cases.

Shortly after vaccines were introduced in December 2022, healthcare workers were subject to mandated vaccination. About 95 per cent of nurses in B.C. were eventually vaccinated and more than 90 per cent of British Columbians got the first two vaccines.

“While COVID-19 is not gone, we now have high levels of protection in the health-care system and in communities throughout B.C.,” she said, adding she will keep an eye on things going into the next respiratory illness season..

The last jurisdiction in North America to officially acknowledge the pandemic is over, Henry rescinded the province’s emergency health mandates a year after the World Health Organization and two years after the neighbouring Alberta government declared the pandemic done in its province.

Seven nurses were fired in north

The decision means nurses in B.C. are no longer required to be immunized against COVID-19 to work in the healthcare system. 

Theoretically, the 2,692 health-care workers terminated in B.C. for refusing to get vaccinated or disclose their vaccination status are now eligible for jobs in the system, including 300-plus healthcare workers in Northern Health.

But there are very few nurses in that group.

Health Minister Adrian Dix said seven nurses were fired over vaccine mandates in Northern Health – two full-time, one part-time, and four casual.

As Peace River North MLA Dan Davies pointed out in a Facebook post, even one more registered nurse in Fort Nelson, for example, could greatly improve healthcare services.

In some rural communities, having one additional nurse or doctor can make the difference between keeping an Emergency Room open or having to divert patients to a hospital in another town or city hours away.

“Five [closures] in a row is an embarrassment to the NDP.”

Dan Davies

Northeast communities have been particularly hard hit by ER closures in the past month and Davies has organized public rallies to protest healthcare conditions in Fort Nelson and Fort St. John for this week.

Hospital closures are putting people at risk, wrote Davies on July 17. “Five days in a row is an embarrassment to the NDP.”

Ending the vaccine mandates won’t suddenly return the healthcare system to pre-pandemic normal. And it won’t solve the problem of repeated ER closures, as shown by this weekend’s closures in Chetwynd and Dawson Creek

Reinstating workers isn’t as simple as staff returning to work on Monday, said Dix, explaining there is a process for people to return to vacant positions.

“We encourage anyone who can work in the healthcare system to do so.”

Dix said he respects people’s “decisions and choices that led to them leaving healthcare” and his government has tried not to divide people along those lines.

“In any event, we need to work with everyone, vaccinated and unvaccinated, and bring people together,” he said.

Immunization reporting replaces mandated vaccines

In place of the vaccine mandate – lifted effective July 26 – the province created a mandatory reporting requirement. Beginning with new hires, all healthcare workers will have to disclose their immunization status for COVID-19, influenza, and other critical vaccine-preventable diseases, according to a statement released by the province. 

Vaccination information for diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, whooping cough, and chicken pox will be collected through a provincial registry “to ensure reporting is consistent throughout B.C.” 

Vaccination is no longer a requirement for employment, but “in the event of an outbreak, healthcare workers who are not immunized may be the subject of other action to ensure the safety of them, their co-workers and patients,” Dix said.

“[Vaccines are] the best tool we have to prevent diseases.”

Bonnie Henry

Henry said immunization works to help protect people from illness and she supports the government’s move to require the immune status of health-care workers.

“It is the best tool we have to prevent diseases, like COVID-19, measles, and others that can cause severe illness in the health-care setting.”

Science, not politics behind lifted orders, says Henry

Both BC United and BC Conservatives claim the pressure they put on the NDP over the past year or two pressured government to end the public-health emergency and lift the vaccine mandate.

Some candidates speculate the government’s decision was influenced by the looming provincial election and concern by the BC NDP that vaccine mandates would become a negative re-election issue for them.

Henry maintains science, not politics, drove the decision.

“Just to be clear, it’s my determination when the conditions are met for a public-health emergency. We look at the data on a regular basis, and it’s always a discussion, when is the right time. It has nothing to do with any of the decisions of government,” Henry said.

“There is an obligation under the Public Health Act for me to lift orders as soon as reasonably possible when the conditions are no longer met.

“It probably, maybe could have been a few months ago,” she added, noting if conditions change, she will “absolutely” bring back the mandates, even if the province is in the middle of an election campaign.

For more news on the BC North Peace, read Tania Finch‘s independent news source, The Broken Typewriter.