Steve MacLellan

Family physicians are “increasingly” getting the requests,
including many from teachers, said Dr. Jennifer Young, president of the
OCFP.

“The guidance is if you have a chronic disease that is
severe, a chronic disease that’s not well controlled, a chronic disease
that requires immuno-suppressants … the severity of the disease
requires more than average accommodation,” Young said.

That
could mean requests for an in-class work exemption or other
accommodations for someone with severe asthma or chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease, for instance, or patients taking drugs that suppress
their immune system for a variety of conditions ranging from cancer to
inflammatory bowel disease.

“We have educators who were able to
work in a classroom pre-pandemic, but have underlying conditions that
now make being in that face-to-face situation too great a risk,” said
Harvey Bischof, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers
Federation (OSSTF).