B.C.’s top public health officials have avoided criticizing other public health leaders for travelling on vacations.
He says people simply need to avoid non essential travel right now.
“Often when people talk about interprovincial travel and we ask people to stick to non-essential travel, we think about people from other provinces coming here but of course people from B.C. go to other provinces. And we take from here to there our circumstances here. And that would be true if we travel to other jurisdictions.”
While travelling abroad is not against the law, is it being strongly recommended against by health officials because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dix, and Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, were asked if they are punishing people who have followed the rules by not punishing public officials who have defied their own recommendations.
Neither directly answered the question.
“And I don’t think any of us have ever gone through something like this where we haven’t wavered now and then. Which doesn’t mean it’s okay, it just means it’s hard. And we have to have compassion,” Henry says.
“We have to understand that not everybody thinks the right way and they make tragic mistakes. And we can all do our best by trying to, in a calm way, support each other to do the right thing. Making the right thing the easiest thing.”
A Kamloops-based public health manager with Interior Health, Leanne Calvin, has come under fire for reportedly travelling to Mexico on a two-week vacation during the holidays.
Calvin has been a registered nurse in Kamloops for at least 17 years and has held several positions, including manager of the Ponderosa Lodge and manager of the Hillside Psychiatric Centre.
While reaction has poured in since allegations surfaced of Calvin’s apparent vacation, she has not returned a request for comment to NL News. And Interior Health has been mum about the situation, saying it’s aware of the allegations but that this is a confidential human resources matter.
Multiple sources told NL News of Calvin’s alleged tropical vacation.
“(Calvin) flew there while the nurses under her command cancelled holidays all year out of responsibility to a pandemic, while they worked overtime and weekends, while they had their vacations revoked, while everyone at that site is mentally and physically exhausted. Everybody cancelled their trips as they are not irresponsible during a pandemic. But not her,” one source said, who has asked not to be named publicly.
