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Alberta requiring all health care providers to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 31

EDMONTON, AB – If you’re a heath care worker in Alberta and you don’t have a COVID-19 vaccine, you better get one.

Alberta Health Services is mandating that all employees and contracted health care providers, and that includes doctors and other frontline healthcare workers, must be fully immunized for COVID-19, by October 31st of this year.

AHS President, Dr. Verna Yui says this is an “extraordinary, but necessary measure to help protect our vital frontline health care teams and help us maintain a safe environment for all patients and clients.”

Any health care worker in Alberta who refuses to get the double-dose of vaccine and has not been given an exemption will have their situation reviewed and it may result in an unpaid leave of absence to allow for full compliance.

Alberta is experiencing a spike in COVID delta variant cases with over a thousand new cases a day, on average for more than a week now.

This new policy will apply to all Alberta Health Services, Alberta Precision Labs, Carewest, CapitalCare and Covenant Health employees, members of the medical and midwifery staffs, students, and volunteers, and other persons acting on their behalf.

This move in Alberta to mandate COVID vaccinations for health care providers follows the lead of some other provinces including Quebec and New Brunswick.

A new release sent out on Tuesday states any AHS employee who is unable to be immunized due to a medical reason or for another protected ground under the Alberta Human Rights Act will be reasonably accommodated.

Dr. Yui says vaccinations are the most effective means to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and to prevent outbreaks in AHS facilities.

Patrick Siedlecki
Patrick Siedlecki
Pat has been a mainstay in the CJOC News department from the time the station launched in 2007. He's been in the position of News Director since then and has been anchoring daily news casts as well as reporting and working behind the scenes. Community is important to him and keeping CJOC listeners and readers informed about what's happening across southern Alberta and beyond. Pat has been in radio broadcasting for the past 24 years, starting in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island in 1997 and then moving up island to Nanaimo for another few years before heading to Lethbridge in 2007. Pat grew up in the small Saskatchewan farming town of Foam Lake. After high school, he went to Western Academy Broadcasting College (WABC) in Saskatoon prior to moving to the island. Pat also spent several years broadcasting hockey in the BCHL as well as seven years as the radio voice of the Lethbridge Hurricanes in the WHL. Pat has been working at Cornerstone Funeral Home in Lethbridge as a Certified Life Celebrant and Funeral Assistant since 2016. News and sports have always been Pat's passion from the time he was a teenager and he's always been grateful to have had the opportunity to make that part of what's been a fun and long radio career!
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