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The president and CEO of North Bay Regional Health Centre says the hospital's administration and human resources department did everything it could to avoid firing employees over COVID-19 vaccinations.
See related: Terminations started at local hospital over COVID non-compliance
Paul Heinrich adds NBRHC was left with no choice but to begin handing out termination notices after a number of employees refused to comply despite a multi-step vaccination education program and disciplinary warning process. Options for hospital staff include providing proof of full vaccination, written proof of medical contraindication, or participation in weekly rapid antigen testing.
"They made a bad choice," Heinrich advises Friday, the day after "fewer than 10 employees" were fired due to non-compliance with NBRHC's employee vaccination policy, mandated by the province. He notes the local policy is consistent with 60 per cent of Ontario hospitals.
Heinrich adds, "The employees went through a progressive discipline process. By the book. They chose to be non-compliant with our policy. They made the choice. It was a bad choice. It's very unfortunate but when you make choices, you have to live with the consequences."
He says the fired employees were offered education, as part of Directive #6 and were warned on numerous occasions as part of the discipline process.
Heinrich admits to feeling "distressed," by the loss of health care workers, especially during the pandemic.
"I feel, frankly, bad for the employees that we had to terminate for the choice that they made," he says. "I am quite worried," about staffing levels and that is "why we don't have [an even] stronger policy. We do allow people to work here as long as they take a single [weekly rapid antigen] test."
The hospital’s policy follows guidance from Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health via Directive #6, Kim McElroy, NBRHC's Director of Communications tells BayToday. McElroy confirms the directive has been enforced with this week's terminations.
It states that many health care workers in higher-risk settings remain unvaccinated, "posing risks to patients and health care system capacity due to the potential (re)introduction of COVID-19 in those settings, placing both health care workers and patients at risk due to COVID-19 infection."
NBRHC implemented and ensured compliance with a COVID-19 vaccination policy requiring its employees, staff, contractors, volunteers and students to provide proof of full vaccination or written proof of a medical reason, provided by a physician or registered nurse that sets out a documented medical reason for not being fully vaccinated against COVID-19, within an established timeframe.
As of Thursday, 92 per cent of NBRHC employees were in compliance.
Heinrich says maintaining staff levels contributed to the administration's decision to go with a less strict COVID-19 employee vaccination policy. It was a factor "in order to have stability of our human resources at this critical time." He notes the provincial government is looking at making vaccinations mandatory for hospital workers, which would leave fewer options for compliance.
See: Hospital prepared to terminate employees who are against COVID-19 vaccines
Last week a hospital spokesperson indicated approximately 40 non-compliant employees could progress to dismissal as early as this week but Heinrich hopes this week's firings will bring that number down.
"I'm a little bit optimistic a number of the other people that were considering non-compliance of the policy will change their minds. That would please me more than anything else. Our workforce is our biggest asset. I care about every single one of them. I feel quite bad for those who made a very poor choice."
