Quebec health care workers’ unions concerned about government’s vaccine mandate

MONTREAL — Unions representing health-care workers in Quebec say they’re concerned about the government’s plan to force their members to get vaccinated or risk losing their jobs.

“We are a little surprised by the severity of the measure,” Jerome Rousseau, vice-president of the province’s largest nurses union, said in an interview Wednesday. Health-care workers are the most vaccinated group of Quebecers, he said. According to the province’s public health institute, more than 90 per cent of health-care workers have received at least one dose and 83.9 per cent are considered fully vaccinated.

On Tuesday, Quebec Premier Francois Legault announced that all health-care workers who spend more than 15 minutes with patients will be required to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Rousseau, with the Federation Interprofessionnelle de la sante du Quebec, said he questions what will happen to workers who are unable to get vaccinated for medical reasons and what the consequences would be for people who refuse.

Jeff Bagley, president of the Federation de la Sante et des Services Sociaux, a union that represents a wide range of Quebec health-care workers, said the government’s plan lacks detail. “Right now, we have a lot of questions,” he said Wednesday, adding that his union also wants to know who will be exempted from the order and what the penalties would be.

Bagley said the government didn’t consult with unions before announcing the vaccine mandate. And while Legault has said he will consult with opposition parties, Bagley said that’s not sufficient.

Legault is “talking about a commission that will last a day and a half, and the opposition parties are the principal people that are going to be consulted, so I’m not even sure that we’ll be consulted in that,” Bagley said in an interview.

Bagley’s union is encouraging its members to get vaccinated, but he said he doesn’t appreciate the coercive nature of the mandate. “If it’s not applied right, it could have some negative consequences.”

The professional order for doctors in Quebec, the College des medecins, said it supports mandatory vaccination for health-care workers.

Meanwhile, the Quebec government cancelled two concerts on Wednesday that were intended to be experiments examining the impact of COVID-19 on large gatherings. Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx said in a news release that rising COVID-19 cases in the province make conditions too difficult to hold the two events that were to host up to 25,000 people.

The concerts had been scheduled for the Quebec City area in September in collaboration with researchers at Universite Laval.

Meanwhile, Quebec reported 436 new cases of COVID-19 Wednesday and one more death attributed to the novel coronavirus.

The Health Department said hospitalizations remained stable compared with Tuesday, at 88, and 28 people were in intensive care, a rise of one. Officials said 41,426 doses of vaccine were administered Tuesday and the province’s public health institute said 85.7 per cent of residents 12 and over have received at least one dose of vaccine and 76.1 per cent are considered adequately vaccinated.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 18, 2021.