FIRING HEALTH CARE WORKERS WHO REFUSE VACCINATION RAISES ETHICAL CONCERNS
experts
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‘I get very uncomfortable with people being fired over this,’
says bioethicist Kerry Bowman

Would you refuse the COVID-19 vaccine at the risk of losing your job?
That’s a question thousands of unvaccinated Canadian health-care workers
are grappling with. (Tara Walton/The Canadian Press)

As workplace vaccine deadlines rapidly approach, thousands of unvaccinated
Canadian health-care workers are having to decide whether to risk their jobs
or to get the jab.

Some health-care workers in Ontario and British Columbia (3,000) have been suspended
without pay from their jobs due to not being vaccinated. Others are bracing
for a similar fate when their province or territory’s vaccine deadline arrives.

Hundreds of Ottawa hospital workers on unpaid leave for being unvaccinated
COVID-19 vaccine mandate now in place for B.C. workers in long-term care, assisted living

Southern Manitoba doctors encounter threatening, unsettling behaviour as mandatory
vaccine deadlines loom

For bioethicist Kerry Bowman, these dismissals are concerning.
“I get very uncomfortable with people being fired over this,”
“If there are other solutions that are reasonable, I think it would be good to
pursue those first.”

Bowman is pro-vaccine, and he believes health-care workers have a moral obligation
to be vaccinated, especially given their roles and the people they interact with.

“When it comes to the rights of health-care workers … [and] balancing that
with the safety and well-being of patients, I would say that the safety and well-being
of patients needs to come first,” he said.

“We’ve got a prime minister and we’ve got political leaders and we’ve got
olumnists that are just about ready to go after [unvaccinated] people,”
he said. “We’re incredibly angry and intolerant towards people that aren’t
vaccinated. There’s not much of a spirit of understanding at all.”

He said officials should seek to understand their unvaccinated employees’
viewpoints and explore other avenues before rushing into a decision that
could have consequences on the individual’s personal and professional lives.

“You can’t deal with a problem you don’t fully understand, and I’m not sure we’ve
really gotten to the bottom of this with everybody, because not everyone’s the same
on this topic,” he said.

Some health-care workers say it’s their choice whether to get vaccinated and no one
can force them to make that decision.

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FACIILTIES SHORT STAFFED

Cara Zwibel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association says Canadian health-care
centres are already experiencing a lack of workers, and a vaccine mandate could have ‘
serious implications in terms of hospitals and other facilities being short-staffed.‘

According to some experts, part of the problem with enforcing a vaccine mandate
for health-care workers is the risk of losing personnel. This could increase
the workload for those who remain and affect the level of care patients receive.

“We have shortages of health-care workers, and if you have a significant portion …
who are going to lose their jobs because they’re choosing not to be vaccinated,
there are serious implications in terms of hospitals and other facilities being
short-staffed,” said Cara Zwibel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

Canada was already desperately short of nurses before COVID-19. Now nurses say
they’re hanging on by a thread
It’s a point some provincial governments have considered. Quebec recently delayed
its Oct. 15 vaccine deadline by 30 days to avoid potentially losing as many
as 22,000 health-care workers.

“Any decision will need to balance the risks posed by COVID-19 to hospitals
with the risk of further exacerbating health human resourcing challenges and
the risks these may pose to the sector’s ongoing delivery of high-quality care,” he wrote.

Quebec suddenly postpones vaccine mandate for health-care workers

Bowman said by painting all non-vaccinated Canadians as being extremist and
potentially dangerous, some public figures are failing to preserve autonomy.

“Case in point, I know a person is accepting vaccination because they have three
young children and they need an income…. They don’t want it and their job is on
the line,” he said.

This [pandemic] story is not over yet, and we’re going to have to look back on this
and this will be part of our history as to how we dealt with it.

—
– Kerry Bowman

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By not respecting an individual’s bodily autonomy, Bowman fears
public leaders are creating conditions that will tarnish Canadian health-care
post-pandemic.

“I’ve even heard bioethicists saying things like, ‘People just have to learn to make better decisions,'” he said. “We’re drifting much more towards a judgement of whether we like the decisions they’re making or not.”

Vaccine passports are a ‘huge ethical minefield,’ says bioethicist
“This [pandemic] story is not over yet, and we’re going to have to look back on this
and this will be part of our history as to how we dealt with it,” Bowman said.
“And I wonder how we’ll score ourselves in the years ahead.”

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01/11/21

Tags: Understaffing