Mixed emotions for fired BC health care worker after vaccine mandate lifted

For Terri Perepolkin, the announcement that British Columbia was finally lifting its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers came as a surprise.

“She’s just been holding onto it for so long,” Perepolkin said of Dr. Bonnie Henry, BC’s provincial health officer, adding that the July 26 announcement was “unexpected.”

The former lab technologist at Vernon Jubilee Hospital was one of around 2,500 health care workers fired in the fall of 2021 for refusing to comply with Henry’s vaccination order.

She says the long-awaited lift of the mandate is wonderful news, but admits there are still plenty of questions and concerns.

“We were excited, it’s a step in the right direction,” she said of hearing the news last Friday. “However, we’re just waiting to see what the unions and employers come up with and how the whole hiring back is going to work.”

While Perepolkin thinks some fired health care workers will head back with no questions asked, she believes it will be hard to entice others to return to the profession in BC.

Others will be waiting to see if there will be any kind of compensation for the time they were forced away from their jobs in health care, she told NowMedia video host Jim Csek.

Perepolkin co-founded the United Health Care Workers of BC, a not-for-profit society the stands for medical privacy and against mandates.

She says around 10% of the society’s members have indicated they’ll go back if there’s compensation, while 40% are still unsure as they wait for further details.

But Perepolkin also believes that many fired health care workers who said they would never return to work are having second thoughts.

“We are really wanting to get back to help with the health care crisis,” she explained.

According to Perepolkin, the biggest question that now needs to be answered is regarding BC's new vaccine registry, which was revealed during the July 26 announcement.

She says health care workers have to provide their immunization card when first hired and have always had to self-report about flu vaccine status.

“They already have all of that information, so we’re a little bit nervous about what this new vaccine registry requires,” Perepolkin said.

“Do all the employees have to get their blood tested to provide that? Are employees going to be put on leave if there’s an outbreak of diphtheria? It’s worrisome for all (health care) employees.”

The former lab tech at VJH also took issue with Health Minister Adrian Dix telling the public that he never tried to divide people, saying that was “definitely not true” and he caused “very big problems.”

She said remarks from Dix and Henry during the pandemic resulted in a lot of bullying and harassment in the workplace, and it will cause issues as fired employees do return to work.

“We have heard from health care workers who are still working and they are upset about the mandates being dropped because they felt like they were coerced into getting vaccinated and they didn’t want to,” Perepolkin claimed.

She speculates that there are potentially “tens of thousands” of health care workers who only got the COVID-19 vaccine to retain their jobs.

As for the lawsuit launched by the United Health Care Workers of BC, Perepolkin says nothing changes in that regard as they were not suing for mandates to be dropped or jobs to be given back.

“We’re trying to make sure that this can’t happen again.”

_{Photos of Dr. Bonnie Henry and Adrian Dix courtesy of the Government of BC.}