Ontario won't force health care workers to get flu shot: McGuinty

TORONTO — Ontario will not force H1N1 vaccinations on its health care workers, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday.

"I don't think we can hold anyone down and inject them with a vaccine if they don't want it," McGuinty told reporters.

Last month, New York state introduced emergency regulations mandating seasonal and swine flu vaccinations for all hospital and some health and hospice workers. It is the first North American jurisdiction to do so.

While health officials in New York welcomed the move, unions bristled at it.

In Ontario, one union head threatened "civil disobedience" if a similar program were introduced.

Studies suggest vaccinating all health care workers would cut the transmission of the new flu virus.

In the U.S., only an estimated 42 per cent of health care workers get an annual flu shot, only slightly better than the 33-per-cent national average, according to U.S. federal health officials.