“It isn’t about health, and it sure doesn’t care”: a qualitative exploration of healthcare workers’ lived experience of the policy of vaccination mandates in Ontario, Canada

"Key Findings

• Most healthcare workers (HCWs) who completed the open-ended question or options in the survey were unvaccinated and had been terminated due to vaccination mandates. Six key themes regarding HCWs experiences of vaccination mandates were identified: (I) policies conflicting with scientific evidence and professional practice; (II) conflicts with medical ethics; (III) unacknowledged or dismissed personal hardships; (IV) unacknowledged or dismissed physical harms; (V) discrimination against unvaccinated HCWs and patients; and (VI) negative impacts on patient care.

What is known and what is new?

• ... [T]his study explores the perspectives on vaccine mandates of a purposive sample of primarily unvaccinated Ontario HWCs, focusing on their decision-making processes, the mandates' impact on their lives, and HCWs' views on how mandates have affected patient care.

What is the implication, and what should change now?

• The study revealed a system in Ontario healthcare settings that undermines informed consent and causes significant harm for non-compliant HCWs and patients. These harms and ethical violations, compounded by the lack of evidence that COVID-19 vaccination stops viral transmission, call for an urgent reconsideration of the practice of vaccine mandates in the health sector."

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