No jab, no pay: Quebec gives health-care workers deadline to get fully vaccinated | CBC News

Dubé made the announcement in Montreal during a provincial update on the pandemic situation in the province. 

For weeks, such events have been led by Dubé, accompanied by Public Health Director Dr. Horacio Arruda. But with the gravity of the fourth wave increasing, Legault returned to head up the news conference for the first time in three weeks.

Legault noted the number of hospitalizations in the province had climbed to 171 from 55 a month ago.

At the briefing, Dubé also announced Quebec’s vaccine passport requirement will apply to people visiting hospitals.

The passport came into effect one week ago — on Sept. 1. It is required for most non-essential services, including for restaurant and bar dining rooms and terrasses. 

COVID-19 a new normal, says premier

Legault echoed a recent Facebook post by Dubé in which the health minister shared thoughts on the future of the pandemic, saying Quebecers would have to “learn to live with the virus” because of fast-appearing variants. 

“For a while, we’re going to have to accept a certain amount of risk. We don’t want another lockdown, so we’re going to have to accept that there will be hospitalizations for COVID-19 for a while,” Legault said Tuesday. 

“We are going to have to reorganize the health-care system.”

He said though the hospitalizations may not be as high as early on in the pandemic, they are already straining the system because of a lack of personnel. 

WATCH | Public Health Minister Christian Dubé announces deadline for unvaccinated health workers:

Quebec takes a hard line against unvaccinated health workers

The Quebec government will suspend any health or social service employee without pay who is not vaccinated by Oct. 15, says the province’s Health Minister, Christian Dubé. (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press) 1:16

“We don’t have enough nurses, especially in intensive care,” the premier said. “[The system] is overflowing and it’s not because we don’t have enough beds, it’s because we don’t have enough nurses.” 

Legault said the government is trying to come up with ways to convince people who have left the profession to come back, by potentially introducing incentives including increasing pay and improving working conditions.

He called on federal leaders to make increasing health transfers a priority in the election campaign, explaining that health-care systems were already strained before the pandemic due to aging populations and that they would need even more money to deal with COVID-19 hospitalizations for the foreseeable future. 

13 per cent of eligible Quebecers still don’t have vaccine

Legault made a plea to the 87 per cent of Quebecers who’ve received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to try and convince one person who is not vaccinated to make an appointment. 

“Try to find a way to speak to that 13 per cent,” Legault said. “It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s still hundreds of thousands of people and the reality is that experts say this variant is so contagious, they are worried the whole of the 13 per cent could end up in hospital.”

He said unvaccinated people are 30 times more likely to end up in hospital with the virus than those who are vaccinated. 

Dubé noted that 90 per cent of new cases are in Montreal, and that the majority of the people in intensive care with COVID-19 are also in the metropolis. He hinted that more specific measures, including expanding the range of activities requiring a vaccine passport, could be implemented for Montreal.