Health-care workers must be fully vaccinated

Re Mandate raises fears of staff shortages, Oct. 11

Regarding the crisis of the shortage of staff in Ontario’s health sector, the government is now facing an absolutely gruesome choice.

We have a medical community, by all accounts already suffering from acute stress, anxiety, burnout and, in some cases, PTSD, from the demands placed upon it by the epidemic.

We have to face up to doing without the support of the unvaccinated medical staff, which makes the plight of the vaccinated staff that much more dire, or we take the risk that unvaccinated staff will infect more patients — patients who are often already more at risk of serious illness or death. Unfortunately, what’s done is done. In future, to ensure all hands are on deck, the government should make it clear that a career in health care requires all practitioners to be subject to vaccination during an epidemic.

Ross Hollingshead, Toronto