Prime Minister François Legault opened the door on Monday to another postponement of the compulsory vaccination of health workers.
In a series of interviews granted in the morning, he spoke of the staff shortage to justify a possible decline on the deadline of November 15.
Recall that originally, health workers in Quebec all had to be adequately vaccinated before October 15, otherwise they would be suspended without pay.
The Legault government was unable to carry out its threat because it would have deprived it of around 22,000 workers, which would have put too much pressure on the services.
The Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, ended up postponing the deadline to November 15.
According to the most recent government report, 19,634 health and social services workers are still not adequately vaccinated. Of these, 13,714 received no dose.
” In certain places “
On Monday, Mr. Legault suggested in an interview with 98.5 FM that compulsory 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 surely be able to apply it in certain places, ”he declared.
“In emergencies, of course, it must be applied because there is very close contact with patients. There are regions where we will be able to apply it. “” What we want is to apply it everywhere “, added François Legault.
He went on to point out that only 3% of nurses refuse vaccination, but “it is a 3% that is needed because it is already missing 4000”, he said.
On QUB radio, the Prime Minister affirmed that “it will depend a lot on the recruitment of nurses”, before adding: “There are surely certain groups where there will be no postponement. “
Quebec is offering bonuses of $ 12,000 to $ 18,000, for a total of up to $ 1 billion, in order to bring at least 4,000 nurses back into the public health network in the coming months.
Mr. Dubé recently indicated that 1,756 people had accepted the offer: 58 were retired, 351 were from private agencies and 1,347 were working part-time and switched to full-time.