Fatigued doctors at Kelowna hospital vote unanimously to promote COVID-19 immunization

Doctors working in Kelowna General Hospital are used to working long hours but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t love some help from the community to ease their workload.

“It’s busy but it’s always busy,” Dr. Maurice Blitz, president of the KGH Physicians Society told iNFOnews.ca. “Certainly, part of that busyness is COVID but, as physicians have been doing for generations, they do and will continue to treat everybody equally and to the best of their ability.”

The society represents all the physicians at the hospital. At its annual general meeting last week members united around a common cause, calling for everyone in the community to get vaccinated.

“It was a good time to have a unified physician voice and this was one of the ways to express it,” Dr. Blitz said, noting that more than 100 physicians voted unanimously at their meeting in favour of promoting vaccinations in the community.

Health-care workers all need to be fully vaccinated themselves by Oct. 26.

READ MORE: COVID restrictions eased in Interior Health as mandatory vaccinations announced for B.C. health-care workers

“We, along with the many nurses, allied health, maintenance, housekeeping, food services and all of the other members of KGH have been diligently working 24/7 during the pandemic to keep our community safe and healthy,” the society posted on its website. “The Kelowna General Hospital Physicians Society is asking members of our community to help us in this battle by getting vaccinated.”

Nurses have spoken out about being short-staffed and have said the mandatory vaccination requirement will not help with their being overworked, partly due to COVID.

READ MORE: B.C. nurse shows strain on frontline of COVID-19 battle

Blitz would not comment on what impact COVID-19 is having on doctors, saying he could not speak for individuals, the hospital or Interior Health.

“There’s a lot of docs who are working awfully hard for awfully long hours to keep people well,” he said. “But, again, that’s what we do and what we’ve always done.”

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