Rustad promises to end vaccine mandates for B.C. healthcare workers

BC Conservatives leader John Rustad announced Thursday his party’s intention to hire back thousands of healthcare workers by ending provincial vaccine mandates if elected in October.

Speaking to the press Thursday morning, Rustad laid out a comprehensive healthcare “overhaul” that he claims would put patient needs first.

The Conservatives’ platform includes plans to expand care through privatization, crack down on drug use in medical facilities, and prevent staffing shortages by revoking COVID-19 vaccination mandates for healthcare workers.

Earlier this month, nurses and leaders spoke out after multiple closures of emergency rooms in northern and Interior B.C. due to staffing shortages, including 23 days of closures over 18 months in the City of Merritt.

Rustad says his plans will address closures across the province by reinstating healthcare workers “who are currently out-of-work due to personal health care decisions.”

In May, the BC Supreme Court ruled in favour of the province’s public health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, after a nurse and two doctors pushed back against the mandates.

The judge in that case decided that the health orders brought in during October 2021 were necessary, saying vaccination against COVID-19 was the right move because healthcare workers who refused to get the shot posed a risk to patients, residents, clients, and their fellow workers.

The judge also directed the public health officer to reconsider whether firing healthcare workers who worked remotely, and not patient-facing, was the right thing to do.

Rustad says, patient-facing or not, it’s time to do away with the mandates. He added that one of the Conservatives’ party candidates was formerly a doctor who retired from medicine because of the law.

“This act restricts doctors’ ability to give the best advice that they can, having to follow government mandates. So this act will be repealed and it will be replaced with a different approach to make sure that we support the health colleges and support the healthcare workers in British Columbia,” said Rustad.

Rustad says the move will restore “thousands” of workers to their positions. According to documents from the May Supreme Court case, since 2021, “approximately 1,800 healthcare workers had lost their jobs due to being unvaccinated contrary to these mandates.”

Rustad says, if elected, a BC Conservatives government would drop the mandates on “day one.”

—With files from Charlie Carey.