Jorge Maria
Pontiac Oct. 20, 2021
Two days before the deadline for all health practitioners to be fully vaccinated, the province extended the deadline from Oct. 15 to Nov. 15.
The day before Quebec’s Ministry of Health released a table detailing how many health care workers across the region could be suspended without pay by Oct. 15. deadline. For the Outaouais, as of Aug. 26 a total of 1065 employees had not been vaccinated at all, while 763 had received their first dose for a total of 1,828 that had not been sufficiently vaccinated. Across Quebec, more than 43,000 healthcare employees were not sufficiently vaccinated. By Oct. 11, this number had been reduced to 22,446 a decrease of more than 52 per cent.
Numbers in the Outaouais were similar, with a total reduction of 41 per cent of healthcare employees not sufficiently vaccinated, as of Oct. 11.
When asked for specific numbers regarding the unvaccinated at the Pontiac hospital, a representative from the CISSSO said that more granular data was unavailable.
In a Sept. 29 story in THE EQUITY, two health workers at the Pontiac hospital estimated that originally up to 40 staff members at the hospital were unvaccinated, though some had chosen to get vaccinated rather than face the risk of losing their jobs. Given the hospital’s current staffing numbers of 231, according CISSSO, any suspension of staff on Nov. 15 will still have a significant impact on the hospital’s already strained resources.
