N.B. doctors suspended for being unvaccinated show no signs of backing down
CBC
For 10 weeks now, doctors in New Brunswick who refused to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination have not been able to practise medicine, and an untold number of their patients are still in the lurch.
Eleven doctors are suspended, including two specialists. The rest are family physicians.
According to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick, not one suspended doctor has backed down.
"It's very frustrating," said Dr. Ed Schollenberg, the college's registrar.
"We would have hoped physicians would have been more scientifically based in their decisions, but that's unfortunately not what we're seeing now."
Amanda Peacock, a 26-year-old daycare worker, says she was a patient of Dr. Dianne Stackhouse, whose practice in Fredericton and Cambridge-Narrows has been closed.
Peacock said she feels conflicted. She believes everyone has the right to make decisions about their own bodies. She is also 100 per cent for the vaccine "and making sure we're safe."
Peacock, who has asthma, said she had to "figure out fast" how to get prescriptions for inhalers. She turned to an online service called Maple that allows her to communicate with doctors by text.
However, she said, her plan to get pregnant is on hold.
Peacock and her husband had been on the cusp of getting a referral to a specialist for infertility treatment.
They had scheduled an appointment with Stackhouse late in December. Peacock said it was cancelled, and they only found out the day before.
Stackhouse declined to be interviewed by CBC News about why she's refusing the COVID vaccine.
Patients who call her clinic in Cambridge-Narrows still get the answering service and a recorded message that says, "Dr. Stackhouse is not retiring and continues to fight to be reinstated."
Duncan Milne of Fredericton said he would still be going to Stackhouse if he could.