Retired nurses returning to work to help with COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Quebec

Laura Aber is trying to make a difference in the ongoing battle to help bring an end to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The registered nurse came out of retirement last year to help with the vaccination campaign. She’s trying to inoculate as many people as possible at a clinic managed by the CIUSSS l’Ouest-de-l’Ile-de-Montréal.

“Wanted to move this forward as fast as possible and they’re quite short of nurses so this was a good thing,” Aber told Global News.

Aber is one of 5,000 retired registered nurses who have rejoined the labour force to help protect the population from the surging spread of the virus, especially the Omicron variant.

The Quebec Order of Nurses says 270 nurses came back during the Christmas holidays.

“When you ask for nurses to come to help, they are always there,” Luc Mathieu, president of the Quebec Order of Nurses, told Global News.

Mathieu even put his office job on hold in January to personally help administer doses.

“At the end of each day I was really happy,” he said.

Quebec Premier François Legault has said that 2,500 health-care workers are still needed to help tackle the pandemic. It’s unclear how many more nurses are needed but Micheline Lévesque is happy to be part of the campaign.

The registered nurse is administering dozens of vaccine doses a day — most of them booster shots.

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“We’re living in a time now where we have a very contagious variant,” Lévesque said.

The Omicron variant makes up almost 95 of all new recorded cases in Quebec. While some studies indicate it’s not as virulent as the Delta variant, it’s considered extremely contagious.

“The only active action you can have is immunize people as much as you can and hope for the best,” Dr. Karl Weiss, the chief of infectious diseases at the Jewish General Hospital, told Global News.

An average of more than 93,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses a day have been administered in Quebec in the last week, the vast majority of them booster shots.

As of Jan. 14, all adults will be eligible to make appointments to receive their third dose.