Legault opens door to another delay for mandatory vaccines among health-care workers
Premier François Legault opened the door on Monday to another postponement of the mandatory vaccination of health-care workers.
In a series of interviews given in the morning, he mentioned the shortage of personnel to justify a possible postponement of the Nov. 15 deadline.
Originally, all Quebec health-care workers had to be properly vaccinated by Oct. 15 or risk being suspended without pay.
The Legault government was unable to carry out the threat because it would have deprived the system of approximately 22,000 workers, putting too much pressure on services.
Health Minister Christian Dubé ended up extending the deadline to Nov. 15.
According to the government's most recent report, 19,634 health and social services workers are still not adequately vaccinated, including 13,714 who have not received any doses.
On Monday, Legault suggested in an interview on 98.5 FM that mandatory vaccination would not be imposed on the entire network, but rather on certain sectors, in certain regions.
"We hope to be able to apply the decree. We will certainly be able to apply it in certain places," he said. "In the emergency room, it is certain that it must be applied because there is a very close contact with the patients. There are areas where we will be able to implement it."
"What we want is to apply it everywhere," said Legault went on to point out that only 3 per cent of nurses have refused the vaccination, but "it's a 3 per cent that we need because we're already short of 4,000," he said.
On QUB radio, the premier said that "it will depend a lot on the recruitment of nurses," before adding: "There are surely some groups where there will be no carry-over."
Quebec is offering bonuses of $12,000 to $18,000, for a total of up to $1 billion, to bring at least 4,000 nurses back into the public health care system in the coming months.
Dubé recently said 1,756 people had accepted the offer: 58 were retired, 351 were from private agencies and 1,347 were part-time and moved to full-time.
- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Oct. 25, 2021.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Western University researchers unlock potential 'cure' for ALS
New research out of London, Ont.'s Western University is shedding light on a potential cure for ALS, in which the targeting of the interaction between two proteins can halt or fully reverse the disease's progression.
Police release 3D images of young child found in an Ontario river two years ago
Police have released a three-dimensional image of a young child whose remains were discovered in the Grand River in Dunnville, Ont. almost two years ago.
Collapsed Baltimore bridge span comes down with a boom after crews set off chain of explosives
Crews conducted a controlled demolition Monday to break down the largest remaining span of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
What Michael Cohen said on the stand in Trump hush money case
The star prosecution witness in Donald Trump's hush money trial took the stand Monday with testimony that could help shape the outcome of the first criminal case against an American president.
Kamala Harris drops F-bomb during White House live-stream
U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris used a profanity on Monday while offering advice to young Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders about how to break through barriers.
A child killer legally changed his name in B.C. The province is trying to stop that from happening again
The BC NDP have tabled legislation aimed at stopping people who have committed certain heinous acts from changing their names.
Mortgage companies could intensify the next recession, U.S. officials warn
U.S. officials worry the next recession could be intensified by a cascading series of failures in the mortgage industry caused by crashing home prices, frozen financial markets and soaring delinquencies.
Security video caught admitted serial killer disposing of bodies in Winnipeg garbage bins
Security video caught admitted serial killer Jeremy Skibicki on multiple late-night outings, disposing of body parts in nearby garbage bins and dumpsters in the middle of the night.
Behind the barricades: How protesters spend their first days in a new encampment
Students in Montreal describe life in a newly erected encampment in Montreal as a whirlwind of preparations, from facing rain and a potential police crackdown to setting up a space for the exchange of ideas.