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All AHS employees, healthcare providers to be fully immunized by Oct. 31

Last Updated Aug 31, 2021 at 4:52 pm MDT

A healthcare worker prepares a dose of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine during a vaccination session for medical staff who work at private clinics in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, May 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

CALGARY — Come Oct. 31, Alberta Health Services (AHS) is requiring all employees and contracted healthcare providers to be fully immunized for COVID-19.

The new policy will include physicians and frontline healthcare workers, and will also apply to all AHS, Alberta Precision Labs, Carewest, CapitalCare, and Covenant Health employees.

WATCH: Alberta Health Services President and CEO, Dr. Verna Yiu, and other AHS leaders will speak about COVID-19 immunization

Alberta Health Services President and CEO, Dr. Verna Yiu, says contracted continuing care providers, along with all contracted healthcare workers acting on behalf of AHS will be included.

The latest an employee can get their second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine is Oct. 16.

“This is an extraordinary but necessary measure to help protect our vital frontline healthcare teams and help us maintain a safe environment for all patients and clients” said Yiu. “Healthcare workers have an ethical and professional responsibility to protect others. For many, that’s the driving force behind why they do what they do.”

“Immunization against COVID-19 is the most effective means to prevent the spread of COVID,” Yiu said. “To prevent outbreaks, to preserve workforce capacity, to support the healthcare system, and to protect our workers, patients, visitors, and others accessing AHS sites.”

In a release, AHS says any employee that is unable to get vaccinated for health or other reasons will be reasonably accommodated.

“We believe that most of our healthcare workers will want to get vaccinated,” Yiu said. “Where a worker remains unvaccinated and has not been granted an exemption or an accommodation, we will be meeting with them.”

Yiu says AHS is setting up a process to review situations where a worker refuses the vaccine on a case-by-case basis. She says after trying to convince the worker to get the shot with educational means, they’ll be sent on an unpaid leave of absence.

“To allow for compliance and for them to consider vaccinations,” Yiu said. “That’s kind of the process, we’re still working through some of it.”

The United Nurses of Alberta(UNA) says it has not had the opportunity to fully review the policy, but it’s not opposed to what it has seen so far.

In a statement, Labour Relations Director David Harrigan says that the question of mandatory vaccination is not a labour-relations or political question but is a public health policy issue that needs to be made by public health experts.

He says it is now appropriate for the employer and the unions to sit down and determine how it is going to be implemented.

 

—With files from Craig Lester