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“They don’t believe in vaccination for whatever reason — I don’t know what the reasons are,” said Ms. Sobrino.

In August, B.C. became the first jurisdiction in Canada to legislate mandatory flu shots for doctors, nurses and any other healthcare worker who may come into contact with patients. In previous years, the rate of inoculation for the province’s health-care workers had been below 50%, one of the lowest in Canada.

“We know that a surprising number of health-care workers will go on working even when they have symptoms of influenza,” provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall told CBC at the time. “Influenza is not a trivial illness, particularly for vulnerable people.”

However, the B.C. Nurses Union immediately struck back at the plan as a “punitive action,” — particularly since it forced the non-vaccinated to spend the flu season wearing a surgical mask.

“It’s just a way to identify the unclean, I think, and stigmatize them into being vaccinated,” said Sara Gough, a Vancouver-based registered nurse who refused the shot.

Ms. Gough said the provinces’ anti-flu shot faction is balking mostly at the “forced nature” of the policy. “I know nurses who have gotten the shot in previous years who are so angry this year that they’re not getting the vaccine as a protest,” Ms. Gough said.

In response, anti-vaccine nurses are accused of being “killers of the sick and elderly,” wrote Ms. Gough in an email to the National Post.