Province, unions at odds over fully vaccinating COVID-19 unit staff

N.S health care unions and top doc disagree Unions representing N.S. health-care workers want priority for second vaccine shot, but Dr. Robert Strang says no. Heidi Petracek reports.

HALIFAX — The Nova Scotia government and public health is at odds with several unions in the province over whether health-care workers being redeployed to COVID-19 units should be prioritized for full vaccination.

In an interview with CTV News Wednesday night, the province's top doctor said it's not necessary.

"One dose of vaccine provides good protection," said Dr. Robert Strang. "Health-care workers have infection prevention protocols and personal protective equipment to protect them."

"To have health-care workers looking for a second dose," he said, "when we still have Nova Scotians with no vaccine, is wrong."

But the unions representing 24,000 health-care workers disagree.

"Let's put all these parameters in place," says the president of CUPE Local 8920, which represents acute care workers.

Bev Strachan says she has heard from members who missed out on the first priority vaccination or are still waiting for their second dose. Some are new hires that came on the job after the program ended. Others worked in fields outside of priority groups, too young to access community-based vaccination.

"You're now in a hospital setting, potentially required to provide care to a COVID positive patient, without any avenue to receive a vaccination, first or second," says Strachan.

The president of the NSGEU says his members feel discouraged by the response from government and Nova Scotia Health.

"They're upset, they don't feel they're being treated well by their employer," says Jason MacLean.

Nova Scotia Health says fewer than 10 of its staff members have contracted COVID-19 on the job during the third wave.

Six of those cases are connected to an outbreak in a non-COVID surgical unit at the Halifax Infirmary.

Others are still under investigation.

It says 40 workers have been infected in total since April.

For MacLean, that fact at even a few workers contracted the virus at work is a sign PPE and best practices may not be enough.

"I'll go back to that we need another level of security and that would be people having the vaccines," he said.

Nova Scotia's opposition leader says the province shouldn't hesitate to get those working on COVID units fully vaccinated.

"We have to recognize and respect the risk factor that they take on and the least we can do is make sure they're fully vaccinated," says Progressive Conservative leader Tim Houston.

But government maintains, at this stage in Nova Scotia's vaccination rollout, that changing course to vaccinate even a small number of health-care workers would disrupt the progress being made.

"The more people that get the first dose in the public," says health minister Zach Churchill, "then the safer our health-care workers are, and the safer everybody is."

Churchill says when the push to deliver second doses begins – health-care workers will receive priority.

According to the province, 90 per cent of health-care workers vaccinated in the early rollout received one dose of vaccine. That rollout included physicians, paramedics, and pharmacists, among others.

Government says 50 per cent received both doses.

Those figures are out of a total of 50,000 doses it says were administered as part of that immunization phase.

In the meantime, the unions asked Nova Scotia health to take other steps, such as using fully vaccinated workers on COVID units first, but say they've had no response.