Calls for mandatory vaccines for Manitoba personal care home staff as Omicron threat looms

Alvin Cadonic says more should be done to protect residents living in Manitoba personal care homes from the looming threat of Omicron.

"It does seem kind of ridiculous that to go to a Bomber game you have to be vaccinated, but to work in a personal care home you don't," Cadonic said.

Cadonic's aunt and uncle live at the Maples Long Term Care Home — the site of Manitoba's deadliest COVID-19 outbreak last year, where 56 residents died.

He worries about the virus making its way in again, so he is not visiting his family in person.

"Zoom calls, that's all we can do," Cadonic said. "We don't want to risk entering the home because we don't want to lose them."

Cadonic would like to see Manitoba mandate vaccinations for all staff working in personal care homes.

Dr. Samir Sinha, the director of geriatrics at Mount Sinai and the University Health Network in Toronto, agrees.

"If someone wants to have the privilege of working with a frail, older person, we need to make sure that they're doing everything they can to protect the people that they're caring for," Sinha said.

His one piece of advice: bring in a vaccine mandate for all staff and ensure everyone gets a third dose as quickly as possible.

In Manitoba, a provincial mandate that came in effect Oct. 18 meant about 42,000 health-care workers had to be doubly vaccinated by then or submit to testing up to three times a week. Those who refused that accommodation were put on unpaid leave.

Shared Health would not release how many staff in the personal care homes sector remain unvaccinated.

However, as of Dec. 6, 95 per cent of direct-care health workers were double-vaccinated in the province, 1,643 are unvaccinated but have opted for regular testing and 143 staff are on unpaid leave, according to Shared Health.

Sinha says that still means five per cent of direct-care staff are not vaccinated.

"Five per cent might seem like a small and manageable number, but that really could be a significant difference between life or death for many residents," he said, adding once the virus gets into a care home "it can spread like wildfire."