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Hire back unvaxxed BC health care workers, urges new campaign

Billboards, lawn signs, bumper stickers, buttons and car flags.

The 'Hire Back Our Heroes' campaign is distributing them all publicly in an effort to convince the province to hire back health care workers who are not vaccinated against COVID-19.

"I know this is a sensitive issue, but it has to be discussed," said Dr. Joshua Nordine, a family doctor in Kelowna with Rutland Medical Associates.

"There is a role for us (unvaxxed health care workers) in the provincial health care system. It was actually my idea to have lawn signs, make them visible and start the conversation about this."

</who>The first of five billboards the campaign hopes to have across BC is located at the busy corner of Highway 97 and Boucherie Road on Kelowna's Westside.

The most high-profile installation so far is the 'Hire Back Our Heros' electronic billboard at the busy intersection of Highway 97 and Boucherie Road on Kelowna's Westside, which went live yesterday.

Four more billboards are planned (depending on how much money is raised through HireBackOurHeroes.ca) for Patricia Bay Highway in Victoria, south of Nanaimo, Maple Ridge and Prince George.

Lawn signs, bumper stickers, buttons and car flags can be obtained by anyone who visits HireBackOurHeroes.ca and requests one and can pick it up at any one of the campaign's hubs in 28 communities across the province.

</who>Dr. Joshua Nordine's family, wife, Charissa, and daughters, Emma and Eloise, with their 'Hire Back Our Heroes' lawn sign.

The campaign is organized by unvaccinated health care workers calling themselves the BC Healthcare Collaborative.

"We're a small group trying to make big waves," said Nordine.

Nordine is able to continue to work in his private family practice.

But because he's unvaccinated he had his hospital privileges stripped in November when the province mandated that all workers in hospitals and long-term care homes be fully vaccinated.

"They kneecapped me," said the doctor.

He also had his contract at a local detox clinic pulled, he can't visit any of his patients in long-term care or hospice and he can't order blood transfusions or iron transfusions for any of his patients.

</who>Dr. Joshua Nordine, a family physician with Rutland Medical Associates, is a spokesperson for the 'Hire Back Our Heroes' campaign urging the province to hire back unvaccinated health care workers.

Nordine said about 800 of Interior Health's 23,000 workers are in a similar boat because they have chosen to remain unvaccinated.

"We are a small percentage," said Nordine.

"We thought this would pass and we'd be allowed back at work by now. But, BC is the outlier, one of the few provinces to still not allow unvaccinated health care workers to be back on the job. So, it's time to take action."

The provincial NDP government has indicated the vax mandate will not end anytime soon.

The opposition Liberal Party is now calling on the NDP to nix the vax mandate.

Nordine says unvaxxed health care workers can now safely work in the system now because COVID has begun the process of entering into an endemic state, and is no longer the same pandemic we once faced.

"Now is the time to move forward and bring these unvaccinated health care workers -- doctors, nurses, care aides, paramedics, technicians, etc. -- back to work with proper precautions in place," said Nordine.

Those proper precautions, according to Nordine, are wearing a face mask, working in less risky areas of the hospital and twice-weekly COVID tests.

"Now is the time for us to come together with common-sense, real-world approaches," said Nordine.

He said while the percentage of unvaccinated health care workers is extremely low, it's still important to have them back on the job because the system is crippled with staff shortages.

"Each person is valuable," said Nordine.

"But the province would rather have chronic understaffing rather than accommodate some unvaccinated health care workers."

Nordine is unvaccinated because he has an autoimmune issue and he doesn't want to risk having it flare up with vaccination.

He's also had COVID and says he has good natural immunity now.

</who>The campaign has 600 lawn signs -- and more coming -- that anyone can arrange to pick up by going to HireBackOurHeroes.com.



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