Doctors, nurses, teachers call for vaccinations
Group urges mandatory inoculation policy ahead of start of new school year
Doctors, nurses, teachers and others on Sunday called for mandatory vaccination policies to better protect the most vulnerable against the Delta variant of COVID-19 as children head back to school.
The Safety-Palooza rally, near the Human Rights Monument on Elgin Street, was organized by Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth, who has run community vaccination clinics called Jabapalooza during the summer.
While some hospitals, including CHEO and Toronto's University Health Network, have made vaccines mandatory for all staff unless they have a medical exemption, other hospitals say they will follow provincial guidance and allow unvaccinated people to work as long as they are tested regularly and participate in an education session. Ottawa's biggest hospital, The Ottawa Hospital, along with Queensway Carleton and Montfort say they will follow provincial guidance.
The policy in schools, where children under 12 are unable to be vaccinated, is similar.
Those at the rally on Sunday said the province has to go further.
“I can't tell you how many times I get asked if I am double vaccinated by patients,” said Deb Lefebvre, a registered nurse who is on the board of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario.
Patients are really worried, she said, and they shouldn't have to be.
The RNAO and organizations representing doctors, teachers and provincial opposition parties are among those pressing the provincial government to make vaccination mandatory.
Teacher Debbie Tracie said she consulted with some students about the question and they wondered what the big deal was since students already have to be vaccinated to go to school.
“We are trying to keep people safe,” she said.
Stephen Skoutajan of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario said he hears from teachers who are not sure they can go back this fall.
“For teachers, this is an anxiety-inducing experience going into a school and working with marginalized families that are the most vulnerable.”
Vaccination protects those who can't be vaccinated, the rally heard.
Dr. Nisha Thampi, an infectious disease specialist at CHEO, said most children who become infected will be fine, but not all of them.
“We have seen severe disease and we tend to see it more in kids with disabilities, with obesity and those who are immunocompromised.”
Of 1,500 children hospitalized with COVID-19 in Canada, about 10 per cent have ended up in intensive care, she said. Since the pandemic began, five of those children have died.
“Those (deaths) are really difficult to handle. Children should not be dying of a preventable infection.”
Provincial opposition politicians, Liberal John Fraser representing Ottawa South and NDP Joel Harden representing Ottawa Centre, called on the Progressive Conservative government to take leadership on the issue instead of leaving it to individual organizations to make vaccines mandatory.
“We have made vaccines universal in schools and hospitals and health-care settings for decades. It is a reasonable expectation,” said Fraser.
Not quite everyone shared that view.
The crowd listening to speakers was heckled by a passerby shouting at them.