With Friday bringing the official end to the B.C. COVID-19 public health emergency and related mandates, including mandatory vaccination for health workers, the BC NDP’s political opponents are taking their own shots at the government.
BC United Leader Kevin Falcon shared a video saying, “Sometimes government gets it right, even if it takes too long.”
“Over two years ago, I called for unvaccinated health-care workers to be returned back to the health system to help us deal with the crisis of emergency rooms closing all over the province, people not being able to get access to care, a shortage of critical health-care workers. The NDP refused stubbornly for over two years,” Falcon said Friday.
“We pointed out there’s no science to back up their decision. They still refused. We pointed out we were the only jurisdiction in North America that was punishing workers like this. They still refused. Well, today they got it right and they came out and said they would allow those workers to come back. Congratulations, government. Better late than never. It’s always the right time to fix a wrong decision.”
On Friday, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced that all remaining public health orders and restrictions had been lifted.
As such, 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.”
BC Conservative Leader John Rustad, who has also been highly critical of the governing NDP’s health policies, shared his own video following the announcement.
Again, he focused on the lifting of vaccine requirements for health-care workers, saying, “This is good news for people needing health care in B.C.”
However, he questioned the timing of the decision, claiming it was directly related to the upcoming provincial election which is slated for October.
“I tell you something, what drives me absolutely nuts is why didn’t we do this before? This is a decision that’s simply being made because we’re three months out to an election and the NDP are worried. They don’t care about health care, they don’t care about patients. They are simply doing this because of politics and that is wrong. That’s not the way health care should be delivered in B.C.,” Rustad said.
The Tory leader chose the Prince Rupert Regional Hospital as his backdrop to hammer home his point.
“I’m out front of a hospital here in Prince Rupert where they have had significant staffing problems, where I’ve heard stories of people who have died in the hallways because they can’t get services. How many people in this province have died because they weren’t able to get services? How many people in this province, quite frankly, have not been able to receive timely care or have had to leave this province? This is a complete failure by this NDP government and now they’re worried because of an election and they’re thinking that they can do something,” Rustad said.
“We need big changes in health care, we need decisions made based on patients, not based on politics.”
Rustad applauded the move but added, “It doesn’t change the fact that health care in this province is in a crisis, that the NDP has delivered that crisis for people, and that it’s going to take a change of government to be able to get us going and have a better health-care system delivering for patients first in British Columbia.”
Dix said while immunization is no longer required to work in a health-care setting, he warned that in the event of a future pandemic, workers who are not vaccinated may be required to follow measures, including masking, modified duties, or exclusion from work.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced Friday that part of her responsibility is reviewing “the need for orders regularly to see if the conditions are continued to be met and remain.”
“And after a careful review of the data, our epidemiologic indicators, the state of our health-care system, the situation in B.C., I am confident there’s no longer a need for this public health emergency,” she added.
She explained that the basics — staying home when you’re sick, washing hands regularly, wearing masks, and covering coughs — are all things British Columbians can continue and remember to do.
Hamish Telford, an associate professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley, admits he was a bit surprised by the announcement, given COVID is still very much around.
“There are still waves of COVID happening, right? President [Joe] Biden just got COVID. I’ve known quite a few people who’ve got COVID recently,” he explained. “So, I thought this was a peculiar time to lift the restrictions.”
Telford is also taking note of the timing of the announcement. While he believes “this is a decision presumably of the public health officer, not the government,” it undoubtedly helps the NDP leading into an election, since the opposition parties have been “making this an issue.”
Telford says there should not have been any political motive behind a move such as this.
“I wouldn’t want to speculate that there was. The chief public health officer is supposed to act independently of government, and I think, until we have evidence suggesting otherwise, we have to presume that that was the case,” he told CityNews.
“Obviously, going into a provincial election, perennially health care is an important issue, often the most important issue. And I think the government was facing flack on that. One of the problems in our health-care system now is a shortage of staff, particularly in rural areas, and we did have health professionals who were terminated because of their refusals to get vaccines. Presumably, those people are now eligible to be rehired. Certainly, that was the angle the opposition was taking. And for the government, this sort of takes that issue off the table — well, they’re hoping it will take the issue off the table — as we head into the election.”
Telford is taking note of the specific time the announcement came, pointing out it was “your classic Friday afternoon, in the middle of summer.”
“That’s an announcement that is being made when the government kind of hopes that nobody actually notices that the announcement has been made. And to the extent that there’s any flack about it, the health officer, health minister, you know, they’re all away for the weekend now. So this was as low-key as it gets, in terms of an announcement, but it will percolate through the system.”
–With files from Srushti Gangdev