At a press conference in Victoria on May 10, 2022, B.C.’s provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry reported on the results of her office’s provincial health order on March 7, 2022 requiring the regulatory colleges and Ministry of Health to coordinate gathering the vaccination status of regulated health professionals in the province. Physicians and Dietitians had the highest rates of vaccination, while Naturopathic Physicians, Chiropractors and TCM Practitioners and Acupuncturists had the lowest vaccination rates.
In the health order, it was stated that:
the colleges require information about the vaccination status of their registrants in order to take measures to protect the public from the risk of exposure to infection posed by unvaccinated registrants
an unvaccinated registrant who provides services to persons puts persons at risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2, and constitutes a health hazard under the Public Health Act;
in order to prevent or reduce the risk of the transmission of infection with SARS-CoV-2 by health professionals, I believe it is necessary for me to
(i) collect personal information about registrants from colleges,
(ii) use personal information about registrants provided by colleges by matching this information with information in the Provincial Immunization Registry,
(iii) disclose personal information including the matched information to the colleges,
(iv) order health professionals to provide personal information to the colleges,
(v) order the colleges to collect personal information from registrants in order to determine the vaccination status of the registrants they register,
(vi) order the colleges to provide personal or aggregate information to me for the purpose of
a. determining the vaccination status of health professionals, and
b. preventing or responding to exposures to or clusters or outbreaks of COVID-19 in a workplace.
As a result of this order, the vaccination status of 17 of the 18 regulatory colleges other than the nurses and midwives were determined and released today.
- chiropractors: 78.1%
- dental hygienists: 92.6%
- dental technicians: 90.7%
- dentists: 95.9%
- dental assistants: 92.8%
- denturists: 92.9%
- dieticians: 98%
- massage therapists: 87.9%
- naturopathic physicians: 69.2%
- occupational therapists: 96.9%
- opticians: 94.9%
- optometrists: 96.0%
- pharmacists: 96.7%
- pharmacy technicians: 96.8%
- physical therapists: 95.2%
- physicians and surgeons: 98.0%
- psychologists: 96.1%
- audiologists/hearing instrument practitioners: 91.9%
- speech language pathologists: 92.9%
- traditional Chinese medicine practitioners and acupuncturists: 79.0%
Despite some of the numbers of certain colleges being lowered than they would have wanted, Dr. Bonnie Henry and Minister Adrian Dix were happy overall with the vaccination uptake among regulated health professionals, which when totaled together were over 93%.