Health Sciences North to suspend unvaccinated employees by Nov. 12

As of Nov. 12, Health Sciences North employees and professionals with credentials and who do not have at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose will be put on leave without pay or be suspended.

The hospital's updated vaccination policy will also apply to employees who are working from home. Only those with a documented medical exemption for a COVID-19 vaccinethat is recognized by the hospital's occupational health and safety departmentwill be exempt.

In an email to staff on Monday, the Sudbury hospital's president and CEO, Dominic Giroux, said Health Sciences North's board of directors voted unanimously Oct. 27 to approve the new policy.

The email said employees and credentialed professional staff who have not received at least one vaccine dose by Nov. 26 will be terminated, excluding those who have a medical exemption.

Employees and credentialed professional staff who do not have a second dose by Dec. 7 will be placed on leave without payor suspended. Those not fully vaccinated by Dec. 21 will be terminated.

Some hospitals elsewhere in Ontario announced similar policies earlier in the year. Toronto's University Health Network, for example, said on Aug. 20 it would fire employees who were not vaccinated by Oct. 22.

In his note to employees, Giroux said Health Sciences North did not put a similar policy in place earlierbecause it was already performing well in terms of vaccination rates.

As of Nov. 1, he said, 266 hospital employees, or seven per cent of its workforce, have yet to provide evidence of full vaccination for COVID-19.

In addition, Giroux said, the number of active cases of COVID-19 in the Sudbury and Districts Public Health Unit area was below the provincial median earlier in the year.

Sudbury a COVID-19 hot spot

But as of Oct. 29, there were 212 active COVID-19 cases in Sudbury and the surrounding region.

Medical officer of health Dr. Penny Sutcliffe declared Sudbury a COVID-19 hot spot on Oct.28 and issued a class order to help slow spread of the virus.

Giroux said in his note to employees the hospital's previous policy, which required unvaccinated employees to provide rapid antigen test results, was problematic.

"In any given week, approximately a third of required participants were not in full compliance, which requires extensive one-on-one followups and disciplinary actions," he wrote.

In an email to the CBC, the Ontario Nurses Association (ONA), which represents registered nurses at the hospital, said it recommends health-care workers get vaccinated if they can, but they should not be suspended or fired if they are unvaccinated.

"ONA supports education and addressing vaccine hesitancy, not penalizing and terminating nurses when we need them the most," the statement said.