8 months pregnant Ontario nurse faces dismissal for refusing mandatory COVID shot
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre condemned LHSC for their decisions and called on medical organizations to end vaccine mandates amid the nationwide staff shortage in healthcare.
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Fri Jul 14, 2023 - 2:42 pm EDT
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LONDON, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) — A pregnant Ontario nurse about to be fired for refusing the COVID vaccine is appealing to keep her job, amid a nursing shortage across the country.
This weekend, Sandra Hartman, 35, pleaded with London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) chief executive Jackie Scleifer Taylor at a public forum to allow her to keep her job as the eight-month pregnant nurse faces dismissal for refusing the COVID vaccine.
“At this point, we’re past… needing it,” Hartman said, according to the London Free Press. “I’m hoping for a change, but that could take time. It could take years. As CEO, I think she would have the authority to change it.”
In 2021, Hartman was placed on maternity leave and then unpaid leave after she refused to take the experimental COVID vaccine.
Hartman’s union, the Ontario Nurses Association, has now informed her that she will be fired this week if she fails to comply with vaccine mandates, despite evidence that the vaccines are dangerous for pregnant women.
However, CEO Taylor seems to have little sympathy for Hartman who served at LHSC for 12 years, saying the hospital is merely following policy guidelines from public health officials.
“Collective scientific evidence and individual protection of patients and staff are debated regularly,” she said, but failed to promise any concrete action on Hartman’s behalf.
If the COVID vaccine requirements are lifted, Schleifer Taylor noted, “it will be evidence-informed. There are a number of things at play.”
Hartman argued that allowing her to stay and serve patients would open the door to other unvaccinated nurses being permitted to return to their jobs saving Canadians, especially amid a shortage of nurses.
An Ontario nurse wishing to remain anonymous told LifeSiteNews that “COVID broke the relationship between nurses and their patients.”
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“Between vaccine mandates and being overworked, Canadian students have lost interest in becoming nurses while current nurses are overworked and therefore taking less shifts,” the nurse continued.
LHSC’s decision to fire Hartman comes amid major staff shortages at the facility. In April, LHSC announced an increase in overtime pay for nurses as the hospital is short 500 nurses.
In 2021, the hospital fired 84 employees over “non-compliance” with the vaccine mandate, forcing other staff to work overtime to keep the hospital running.
LHSC is hardly alone to suffer staffing shortages as hospitals across the country are struggling to find and keep medical staff amid ongoing vaccine mandates.
Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre condemned LHSC for their decisions and called on medical organizations to end vaccine mandates.
“The fastest way to get more of the doctors and nurses we need?” he tweeted. “End all the discriminatory vaccine mandates blocking them from doing their jobs, so they can work again.”
Topics
Tagged as
- COVID vaccine refusal
- job appeal
- LHSC
- medical staff shortage
- nursing shortage
- Ontario nurse
- Pierre Poilievre
- pregnant nurse
- Vaccine Mandates
- vaccine safety for pregnant women
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