Image Credit: ADOBE STOCK
October 26, 2021 - 4:05 PM
Some non-urgent surgeries will be postponed in the Interior Health region as early as this week to deal with high levels of COVID-19 hospitalizations combined with having the highest rate of unvaccinated workers in B.C.
Seven per cent of health-care workers in the Interior Health region are not vaccinated and, if they don’t get a jab today, Oct. 26, they will be placed on unpaid leave, Health Minister Adrian Dix said during a press briefing.
Health-care administrators have been preparing for the possibility of losing a large number of workers who have refused to be vaccinated by today’s deadline.
“There are some areas that we are working on,” Dix said. “Diagnostic imaging is one. Lab work is another. There will be some impact on surgeries in Interior Health this this week.”
Non-urgent surgeries have been cancelled throughout the province during the pandemic but, out of 200 cancelled in the week of Oct. 17 to 23, none of those were in Interior Health, Dix said.
The Ministry of Health provided different numbers on staff vaccination rates to iNFOnews.ca yesterday, saying only five per cent (1,069) of Interior Health workers were unvaccinated. The numbers Dix used included casual workers who had worked for at least one day.
READ MORE: One-third of unvaccinated B.C. health workers in Interior Health as deadline arrives
Out of 126,343 total health-care workers in B.C. (not including those in long-term care or assisted living), 4,090 were not vaccinated as of today, with 1,369 of those being in Interior Health, which makes it challenging for an already overworked health-care sector.
“We’re working through this throughout the province,” Dix said. “What we see as the most challenging is Interior Health because it has the highest rate of unvaccinated people in the province.”
Support can come from other health regions. While he didn’t mention sending Interior Health patients to other regions of the province, Dix did say 67 residents of the Northern Health region have been sent to other hospitals, mostly on Vancouver Island. The majority of those are unvaccinated people with COVID.
The Interior Health region has 1,436 base beds and 406 surge beds for a total of 1,842 beds, of which 1,528 are occupied.
Dix did not have a breakdown as to what type of workers were least vaccinated, saying the ratio is about the same across all categories.
Those refusing to get vaccinated will be terminated in two weeks, as happened today with about 1,800 people working in long-term care and assisted living facilities. They were ordered to be vaccinated by Oct. 12.
Those who refused were put on unpaid leave for two weeks and are now being terminated, Dix said.
At least one long-term care home in the Interior Health region is closing because of the shortage of staff triggered, in part, by the vaccine mandate.
READ MORE: As vaccination deadline looms, could more Kamloops, Okanagan care homes close?
Because of high hospitalization rates in the Interior Health region and low vaccination rates in some areas, there are stricter rules around social gatherings.
Western Hockey League teams in Kamloops and Kelowna, for example, can’t open their arenas to full capacity like others in B.C. can.
“We’re looking at this on a day to day basis and I do believe it will be settling in the next few days and I’m hoping that we’ll be able to lift restrictions and get back to those important hockey games and arts and other events safely and very soon,” provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said during the same news briefing.
But, she cautioned, there’s still a lot of pressure on Interior hospitals so health authorities will be looking at where there are higher case counts and low vaccination rates before making any such decisions.
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