Ontario Nurses’ Association alarmed by softening of COVID-19 protections as province heads for another wave of the pandemic

TORONTO, ON, September 1, 2022 – The Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) is alarmed by the announcement of the province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health that infected patients must no longer isolate for five days and can resume activities after just 24 hours, whether continuing to test positive for COVID-19 or not. Moore added that Ontario hospitals have the capacity to care for more patients infected with the coronavirus.

“It is absolutely mind boggling to me that Dr. Kieran Moore believes that Ontario hospitals continue to have capacity to care for more COVID-19 patients,” says ONA President Cathryn Hoy, RN. “We have barely emerged from the seventh wave of this airborne, highly infectious coronavirus and are soon to head back indoors as fall begins, people return from vacation and school resumes.

“Over the summer, Ontario saw countless bed, unit and emergency room closures due to nurses becoming infected and leaving the profession. The science – and plain common sense – suggest that we need to have stronger COVID-19 protections, not lesser precautions that we know will all but guarantee another serious wave.”

Hoy says that while everyone – not least of all Ontario’s exhausted registered nurses and health-care professionals – is tired of the pandemic and would prefer to pretend it’s over, the reality is that the guidance being offered by this government and its medical officer of health is misguided at best and fails the residents of the province.

ONA is the union representing more than 68,000 registered nurses and health-care professionals, as well as 18,000 nursing student affiliates, providing care in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, the community, clinics and industry.

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