COVID-19: Unvaccinated Okanagan assisted living workers being terminated – GLOBAL
October 27, 2021
Two weeks after a provincial deadline for all assisted living and long-term care staff in B.C. to have at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, H and H Total Care Services says it’s had to terminate around seven of its roughly 400 Okanagan staff members.
It’s a smaller number than the 20 employees the business originally expected might remain unvaccinated after the deadline.
“[The vaccine mandate] went better than I would have thought…when it first was announced there was a lot of trepidation, a lot of conversation amongst staff: ‘I’m not going to do it, I’m not going to do it,’” recalled Hendrik Van Ryk, the VP of Human Resources for H&H Total Care Services.
“We were like, ‘Uh oh, this is not going to go well.’ But we continued to have those conversations with staff and we continued to give them information, education about the vaccine.”
