Merritt mayor hopes COVID vaccine mandate changes will improve ER situation

With B.C. dropping COVID-19 vaccine mandates for health-care workers as of Friday, the mayor of Merritt is among those hoping this move will help prevent emergency room closures in communities like his.

The Nicola Valley Hospital has seen a number of ER closures due to staffing shortages this year. During closures, patients seeking emergency care in Merritt have been told to go to neighbouring communities like the Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops or call 911.

Merritt Mayor Mike Goetz says in 26 days, there have been 26 closures in the Interior Health Authority.

He has been calling for an end to the vaccine mandate for some time.

“I know that we have two doctors in this municipality who have homes here who have let the minister know that if the mandates were lifted, they would return to work within a week. So that’s two doctors here for sure and probably a few more nurses. So I would say we have about four to five health-care professionals in the community that would return to work if the mandates were lifted,” he told CityNews, shortly after Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry made the announcement.

“This goes to help smaller communities such as myself, and other communities that are having issues like Clearwater and Oliver, to have doctors and nurses that were unvaccinated to actually come back and kind of help with the load. So that takes down a barrier. And I’m hoping that within a month or two, we’ll see no more hospitals being closed down because now they can return to work. It would be nice. Yeah, I’m very happy with it.”

Goetz says the number of health-care workers who were laid off because of the vaccine mandate is in the hundreds, based on what he’s heard from staff.

He admits the move will not resolve all of the issues right away, adding it’ll likely take some months before improvements are noticeable.

“Some of the people that were removed because of the mandate have moved on to other provinces. So, you know, they’re not going to come back and some will come back. And there may be issues with those who received the injections and those who didn’t. But my message would be, you know what, that’s the past. The whole idea is to look forward, work together for the betterment of everybody that’s in hospitals, because it’s all about care of patients and it’s not about personal issues. So don’t look in the rearview mirror, look forward, and let’s all work together. It’s something that happened, but it’s happened and now we move forward. And we move forward together for the benefit of everyone,” Merritt’s mayor said.

On Friday, Henry announced that in addition to remaining public health orders and restrictions had been lifted, the public health emergency declared due to COVID-19 also ended.

Health Minister Adrian Dix shared that he was directing “health authorities, including the Provincial Health Services Authority, to collect, review, and store the immunization status of all clinical and non-clinical health-care workers employed, contracted by and appointed by authorities.”

He said this record collection will cover all high-priority pathogens of relevance to health-care workers, “as outlined by the BC Centre [for] Disease Control Immunization Manual.”

“Those include COVID-19, influenza, but also measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, pertussis,” the minister said. “Health-care workers terminated due to non-compliance with previous orders can apply for available positions and be hired.”

-With files from Srushti Gangdev