those fears were heightened recently when a partially vaccinated staff member in the emergency department at montreal’s st. mary’s hospital became infected, leading to an outbreak that spread to more than a dozen partially vaccinated staff members.
many emergency departments, especially smaller ones, would be decimated by such an outbreak, said drummond.
ottawa nurses who are being redeployed through hospitals have also told this newspaper they are terrified because they have had just one dose of vaccine.
“it’s like sending soldiers to the war with stones,” said doris grinspun, chief executive officer of the registered nurses’ association of ontario. she, like others, is calling for immediate full vaccination of all front-line health-care workers.
herman is one of just a handful of doctors working in queensway carleton’s emergency department who have not yet received a second dose of vaccine.
with limited initial doses, older staff members in the department got vaccinated first, which made perfect sense, said herman, who is 32. those physicians have now received two doses. but herman and the others who got their first doses later have now had their second dose delayed by up to four months, in keeping with provincial policy.