[ad_1]
EDMONTON—Alberta Premier Danielle Smith doesn’t just think unvaccinated people are the most discriminated-against people she’s ever seen — she also says they could fill depleted ranks among health-care workers in the province.
The suggestion came during the Tuesday press conference that landed her in a world of trouble this week when she said unvaccinated people were heavily discriminated against; the most, in fact, that she’s ever come across. (She’s 51.)
But the hour-long press conference with reporters dealt with myriad things, one of them being her plans to deal with health-care in Alberta, which she plans to take a heavy-handed approach to reforming.
Smith, for her part, placed the blame for health-care staff shortages in Alberta’s clinics and hospitals on “mandatory vaccinations.”
“It prevented us from being able to hire back everyone who had been let go up until about two and a half months ago,” she said, adding that she’ll ensure “reinforcements are coming” to the front line.
A reporter asked: where will those workers come from in a country, and world, where the health-care shortage problem is being felt everywhere?
“For one thing, because we will not have a vaccine mandate, they will know from all over the world that if they’re facing vaccine mandates in their home jurisdiction, they can come here,” said Smith.
Smith also wants to fast-track the recognizing of foreign health-care credentials as a way to get more staff.
Experts and political opponents, meanwhile, blasted her idea that unvaccinated people could flock to Alberta due to it not having a vaccine mandate for health-care workers. It could, some said, have the opposite effect by scaring off health-care workers — the vast majority of whom chose to get vaccinated during the worst days of the pandemic.
Heather Smith, president of the United Nurses of Alberta, a union representing some 30,000 nurses, said that Smith’s comment was “ill-informed,” pointing out that about 97 per cent of health-care workers under Alberta Health Services had chosen to get fully vaccinated.
“If there were going to be hordes of practitioners coming from other jurisdictions because Alberta no longer required the protection of the vaccine, that would have happened months ago,” she said.
The province hasn’t had a vaccine requirement in place for current employees since early March, she said. Up until then, there were about 750 nurses put on leave due to their decision to not get vaccinated, Heather Smith added.
After March, the province still required vaccinations for new hires, but that rule was also lifted in August, she said.
She said she doesn’t see how it will help in any way and thatit may suppress workers who believe in the safety of vaccines, thinking that they would be risking unnecessary exposure.”
Even then, “the government of the day can never say there will never be another mandate,” she said, “they have an obligation to act in the best interest of the public.”
Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases expert with the University of Alberta, said in an email that “the notion that a large volume of health care workers have been sidelined by vaccine mandates is not supported by any evidence I have seen.”
“Vaccinations required for health care have been around a long time (Hepatitis B is a good example),” Saxinger said. “I think requiring vaccination should be on the table where patient safety is at stake and there is a scientific rationale that vaccination will reduce that risk.”
Exposing patients to vaccine-preventable diseases would go against a health-care worker’s duty of care, she added.
Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley said Smith’s idea that unvaccinated health-care employees from other places could help shore up the workforce in Alberta was “creative speculation.”
The “much bigger risk,” said Notley, was scaring off well-trained health-care workers already in the province who might “feel very uncomfortable continuing to work in Alberta.”
The comments from the premier suggest that she’s catering “to a very small group of extremists in the province,” Notley said.
Meanwhile, Smith has pledged a health-care overhaul, and announced on Tuesday that she’d be giving the boot to Alberta’s long-time chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw. She plans to have a team of public health advisers instead.
Smith also wants to have new management of Alberta Health Services in place by next year.
Heather Smith of the United Nurses said the mass reform pledged by the premier was a scary proposition that could spell chaos for front-line workers, “for no justifiable reason.”
Smith said overhauling health care will not help attract more health-care workers since they’ll see Alberta as disorganized. She also suggested that some could see the moves as being part of a “larger agenda” around “wanting to promote private, for-profit options versus investing in our public health-care system.”
“I’m not expecting that this is the end of the roller-coaster, I think we’re at the very beginning,” she said.
“God help us all.”
Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. If you do not yet have a Torstar account, you can create one now (it is free)
[ad_2]
You can read more of the news on source
