Ontario nurses urging Province make COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for health-care workers

The Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO) is urging Premier Doug Ford to reconsider his stance on mandatory vaccines for health-care workers.

During a press conference last week, Ford said he felt everyone, including health-care workers, had the right to choose whether or not they got the vaccine.

“No one should be forced to do anything,” Ford said during a press conference on July 15. “I think it’s their constitutional right to take it or not take it.”

However, the Ontario Medical Association and now the RNAO disagrees with Ford, suggesting health-care workers are at a much higher risk of both contracting the virus themselves, and spreading it to their patients, than the rest of the public.

Additionally, the RNAO points out that mandatory vaccines would help alleviate some of the other expenses associated with the pandemic, including the procurement of personal protective equipment as well as the need for conducting ongoing COVID-19 testing.

Further, in her open letter to Ford, Doris Grinspun, CEO of the RNAO, cited a recent study that found that COVID-19 vaccines are very effective at preventing serious illness and hospitalization from the virus, reducing transmission of the virus, and have extremely low rates of serious side effects.

“This growing body of evidence speaks to the critical need for mandatory vaccination of health-care workers in Ontario,” Grinspun said in her letter to Ford.

“We at RNAO know that mandatory vaccination will encourage the vast majority of health-care workers to take the vaccine, but it will also raise resistance from a small number of opposers. Know that we will support you in addressing opposers,” she continued.