Why is Ford standing up for the anti-science crowd and not our patients?

This week, the premier of Ontario decided not to mandate vaccinations for healthcare workers.

This is such a bad decision that I just can’t let it go. If you work in healthcare, you need to be vaccinated. Full stop. It’s the best way to protect yourself, your colleagues and your patients. And the premier should stand behind this.

Now, he said he’s worried about tens of thousands of people leaving work. If you have a blanket policy that covers homecare, long-term care—which you’ll have a policy on Nov. 15—hospitals, clinics, everywhere a patient receives care, it’s highly unlikely you’ll have a mass exodus of healthcare workers because there will no other place to work if you’re unvaccinated.

Instead, by saying that it’s not important to be vaccinated if you work in healthcare, it really placates the anti-science, anti-vaccination crowd. In my view, he’s standing up for them and not standing up for my patients, our patients, the people who are most vulnerable. And that’s where he should be standing—behind them.

So the premier needs to change his message, he needs to change his decision and, in fact, mandate vaccinations for all domains where patients receive care, where it be homecare, long-term care, hospitals or clinics, because that’s the right thing to do.

Dr. Michael Warner is a practicing intensivist and Medical Director of Critical Care at the Michael Garron Hospital