One of Ontario’s healthcare unions says the province’s latest announcement on vaccines for healthcare workers is not clearly explained.
The province announced Tuesday that healthcare workplaces need to create policies by early September requiring workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, or get regular testing.
SEIU Healthcare President Sharleen Stewart calls it “very confusing,” saying this follows a pattern set by other announcements from Premier Doug Ford.
“When he said there was an ‘iron ring’ around long-term care [residents], there wasn’t. When he said he was going to go to the bank and make sure that workers got a wage increase, he didn’t do that. He’s saying that this is a mandatory vaccine directive, it isn’t,” she says.
“SEIU does support the mandatory vaccination, our members do. We polled them, and the vast majority see it as a health and safety issue in the workplace,” Stewart explains, and says around 90 per cent of those members are vaccinated.
“I mean, if the province is going to issue a mandatory vaccination [requirement], they should do that,” Stewart notes. She adds the union wants to work with the province to encourage the remaining few eligible unvaccinated healthcare workers to get immunized.
She points out the vaccine policies laid out in the announcement have been mandatory in the long-term care sector for some time, and this simply expands them to other healthcare workers.
The announcement indicates similar rules will also be put in place for the education sector.