By Mike Renzella
The Haldimand Press
HALDIMAND—Haldimand County Council has voted in favour of changing its three separate vaccine policies related to County staff, paramedic services, and long-term care staff.
Cathy Case, General Manager of Corporate and Social Services, said the general policy for employees, implemented in fall 2021, was “what they call a ‘vaccinate or test’ policy. It did not mandate vaccination. It mandated disclosure and that was to meet the employers’ obligation to provide a safe work environment.”
“The paramedic policy, as approved by Council, was to mandate vaccination. That was not a provincially mandated thing,” said Case. “It was based on the health and safety of the public and the health and safety of our workforce.”
The policy for Grandview staff followed similar policies deployed at all LTC homes across the province. Case noted, “Recently, the provincial government has come out with direction that they are no longer mandating vaccination, but they are requiring employers to develop policies of their own.”
Staff recommended different levels of change for each policy. On the general policy, Case explained, “Staff are recommending that we rescind that policy in its entirety. There will no longer be requirements to disclose your vaccination status or get a test. That aligns with the re-opening across the province.”
However, things aren’t as cut and dry for the other two policies. In terms of the policy aimed at paramedic staff, “We’re recommending that policy be amended to remove the requirement for mandatory vaccination for existing staff,” said Case. “It would retain the requirement for new hires to be fully vaccinated, using the definition of two doses for full vaccination.”
As for why the decision was made, she said, “We have a really high rate of vaccination amongst our paramedics, and we want to retain that so it doesn’t impact our ability to provide services in that area.”
Staff recommended maintaining full vaccination for all Grandview staff.
Case explained, “Because of the Provincial mandate, 100% of our staff are vaccinated. Because of the difficulty of recruitment in that area and the vulnerability of the LTC sector … and also because we don’t know what’s going to happen come the next few months with the different variants we’re seeing out there in Canada, we want to maintain that policy.”
Case said the County would review those decisions “at a time when there’s more evidence to support any changes to that policy,” and would report back to Council at that time.
Councillor Stewart Patterson asked about three paramedic staff members who are currently on an unpaid leave for refusing vaccination, and when they might be allowed to return to their positions.
“We haven’t had this specific discussion with those three because we can’t do that until we have a Council decision to move forward. We don’t want to discuss a return if that’s not the direction we’re going,” said Case. “They’re still employees; they’ve never been terminated.”
She said HR will work with Paramedic Services manager Jason Gallagher on when those employees could return to the workforce.
Councillor John Metcalfe inquired about any County staff who had been let go for not complying to the policy, to which County CAO Craig Manley responded, “The discipline that was achieved had nothing to do with being vaccinated; it had to do with not complying with the policy. It’s no different than any other health and safety policy we have. It would be no different than someone refusing to wear a helmet to go on the ice.”
The motion to make the changes was carried unanimously.
