The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) was forced to apologize after sending out an internal email that ‘accidentally’ ousted 497 employees who may not have provided proof of vaccination.
According to the CBC, which attained a copy of the email, only those employees with surnames beginning with ‘B’ or ‘C’ were affected, a fraction of the overall workforce.
The SHA is not ensuring staff that no personal health information was leaked (even though they singled out employees who have yet to self-declare vaccination status) and say they will work to send emails “more discreetly in the future.”
“Your employee ID was not matched with a record of a submitted self-declaration stating your COVID-19 vaccination status,” the apology email reads. “If you completed the declaration by the October 15, 2021, deadline, please disregard this email.”
Additionally, the SHA has no clue how this mistake occurred, saying they are uncertain if it was an entry error or some other problem.
“The Saskatchewan Health Authority apologizes to our employees whose names were inadvertently revealed in an email sent this week,” the SHA told CBC on Friday. “The email was sent to all employees who did not have their employee ID number match a self-declaration stating their COVID-19 vaccination status….”
“Please note this email is about the submission of the declaration, and does not provide any personal health information, including vaccine status.”
The SHA gave employees until October 15 to declare their vaccination status or be subject to ongoing testing.
So far, the SHA says they have received over 40,000 self-declarations of vaccination status out of 44,000 total employees.
Furthermore, out of 2,702 practicing physicians, 2,118 are fully vaccinated, many are partially vaccinated, and 530 have yet to declare their vaccine status.
