Shorter isolation period could alleviate some staffing woes: nurses union president

The head of the Nova Scotia Nurses Union says shorter isolation periods could help alleviate staffing shortages in several sectors, including the health care industry.

Other provinces — including British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec — now allow those who test positive to end self isolation after five days if they are fully vaccinated and no longer have symptoms.

NSNU president Janet Hazelton said, in our province, hundreds of nurses are currently in isolation, either because they're positive or close contacts of a recent case.

“If that were to happen, that would certainly help,” she told CityNews Halifax. “In some cases, nurses and health care workers are off for ten days, they're testing negative and they're not symptomatic.”

“Isolating for five days is not so daunting and will help get people back to work quicker.”

Hazelton said many health care workers are pitching in to get the province through Omicron. Some cut their holidays short, part-time workers are picking up more hours and recent retirees are returning to the job.

And she believes the situation would be significantly worse if not for the vaccine.

“Although we have thousands of people off testing positive — not just nurses, but in the whole province — there's very few hospitalizations, so people are not getting as sick with this strain,” Hazelton explained.

“And for people who are lucky enough to have had their booster, we're hearing that even though they're in close contact with someone that later turns out to be positive, they're not testing positive,” she added. “So the booster has given that added protection we were told it was going to.”