under certain conditions, health-care workers in quebec who have tested positive for covid-19 will be allowed to return to work, health minister christian dubé announced tuesday.
the details of those conditions, which dubé said will depend on priority and risk management, will be announced in the coming days.
the decisions will be made “case by case, region by region, hospital by hospital, chsld by chsld,” he said.
“omicron’s contagion is so exponential that a huge number of personnel have to be withdrawn and that poses a risk on the network capacity to treat quebecers.”
dubé said the health ministry met with public health, health-care unions and associations ahead of the announcement.
he added that in past waves, health-care staff who had been exposed to covid-19 were swiftly identified and removed from work, but that the high level of vaccination among personnel — 98 per cent are fully vaccinated — has enabled the ministry to shift the paradigm surrounding infected workers.
in a statement released tuesday, quebec’s largest union representing health-care workers, the fédération de la santé et des services sociaux (fsss-csn), said it fears the new measure could put more workers at risk.