Proof of vaccination, testing requirements being lifted for Manitoba health-care staff
Province's mask, vaccine requirements also set to end next month
Manitoba health-care workers will no longer be required to show proof of vaccination or undergo frequent testing for COVID-19 when the province ends its vaccine mandates on March 1, Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin said at a news conference Thursday.
The change is possible because the province has passed the peak of the Omicron wave and the number of patients in hospitals is falling, Roussin said.
All provincial proof-of-vaccination requirements will come to an end March 1, and mask mandates end March 15.
As of the beginning of March, daycare, education and health-care workers will no longer be required by the province to show proof of vaccination or submit to frequent testing.
However, Manitoba businesses that want to continue using proof-of-vaccination cards and the province's verifier app will be able to do so, Roussin said.
The province announced Feb. 11 that businesses like restaurants and entertainment venues will no longer be required to ask customers to show their vaccine cards as of March 1, but officials didn't say whether vaccination or frequent testing requirements for health-care and other workers would be continued.
Ending the vaccine requirements for staff is part of efforts to gradually return the provincial health system to normal operations, Roussin said.
"This is just all part of the move forward," he said.
"We knew that this was not going to be in place permanently. None of these public health restrictions were in place permanently, and we're seeing the trends now in cases."
Roussin appeared remotely on a screen at a news conference where Health Minister Audrey Gordon and David Matear, health system co-lead with the Unified Health Sector Incident Command, appeared in person.
Trends in right direction
Modelling shows that COVID-19 hospital admissions peaked in early January and are expected to continue dropping into mid-March, Roussin said. Intensive care unit admissions have followed a similar trajectory.
In the past week, 12 COVID-positive patients were admitted to ICU, with zero admissions on Wednesday, Matear said.
There were 106 COVID-positive patients in hospital Thursday morning, up by seven from Wednesday. However, the number of COVID-positive patients in ICU declined by almost 16 per cent in the last week, and by 40 per cent since Feb. 1, Matear said.
The province will begin to gradually move the approximately 500 health-care staff who have been redeployed to other areas back to their home units and facilities, Gordon said.
In an emailed statement to CBC News, the organization that represents physicians in the province says it's encouraged by the news, but notes the backlog of procedures will require the creation of additional capacity in the system.
"While a return to normal volumes for surgeries and diagnostic tests is a move in the right direction, it will not reduce the massive backlog of 161,000 surgeries and tests we estimate have accumulated during the pandemic," Doctors Manitoba said in the statement.
Matear said the Unified Health Sector Incident Command has developed a phased approach to returning the health system to normal operations. Clinical leads will set priorities for which services will resume first, including surgical slates, diagnostic procedures and outpatient and community care services.
"We know that across health-care system, we're not back to normal and we must maintain our capacity to care for COVID patients and to scale up services or scale them down as patient needs change," said Matear.
That may also include scaling back the province's vaccination program. Health officials will work with members of the province's vaccine implementation task force to discuss next steps, Gordon said.
"Many individuals have been redeployed to that team, so we'll look at whether that needs to be scaled back, but we will still continue through our communications campaign to encourage vaccination going forward," she said.
Restrictions of visitors in hospitals and personal care homes will also be reviewed. Although vaccination requirements for visitors will end March 1, other restrictions, like limits on visiting hours and appointments, will remain in place for now.
Continuing patient transfers
The province will continue the use of inter-regional patient transfers, which have seen patients transferred out of their home regions to other facilities across the province.
There have been 294 stable patients transferred to sites outside home region, including seven in the past week, Matear said.
"While we recognize the concerns of affected patients and their families about the distance from loved ones, we also appreciate their understanding that these transfers remain necessary," he said.
Manitoba NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara called the province's decision to continue the transfers "incredibly disappointing."
"The government making the decision to continue this practice moving forward in this way, to me, is this government giving up instead of saying, 'We're going to invest in health care," the Union Station MLA said.
They also said allowing unvaccinated staff working with vulnerable people to go back to work without mandatory testing is a mistake.
"I know that everyone wants to get to a place where we can do all the things that we love with the people we love, and do the things that we've missed doing," said Asagwara, a former nurse.
"We will get there, we should get there, but that shouldn't mean leaving people without the protections they need in order to have good health outcomes."
When asked how the province will address concerns health-care workers may have about unvaccinated employees returning to work, Gordon said senior health leaders were all in agreement with the province's plan.
Site leaders will send memos out to their staff later on Thursday with details of their plans, and have been asked to work with staff to address their concerns, she said.
She also said one of the goals of ending the vaccine requirement is "bridging some divides that have been created throughout this pandemic."
"We want to do it in an empathetic way, and we want to be compassionate and kind and remember that everyone has had an experience with this COVID pandemic — and how do we heal some of those wounds?"
WATCH | Full news conference on COVID-19 | February 24, 2022:
