Paramedic Bill Kotsopoulos was suspended last winter for refusing to get a flue shot.

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TORONTO -- Paramedics across Ontario will no longer be required to be immunized against the flu in order to stay on the job, Health Minister Tony Clement confirmed Thursday.

"Beginning this fall, we will be implementing a new influenza control standard for paramedics across the province,'' Clement told a news conference at a downtown Toronto ambulance dispatch station.

"The new standard will set out a system of infection control measures designed to reduce the spread of flu and make the influenza immunization for paramedics no longer mandatory.''

For nearly two years, paramedics and their union officials have been engaged in a running battle with the province over the shots, which paramedics say they ought to be able to forego if they so choose.

Sid Ryan, Ontario president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents some 5,000 paramedics across the province, said more of them are likely to get a flu shot if they're given a choice.

A court challenge that was expected to argue the program violated the Charter rights of the workers will now be dropped, he added.

"There's no question that the public will benefit by this program and our workers benefit by it, so it really is a classic win-win,'' Ryan said. Paramedics, he added, agree with the idea of a flu shot; they just wanted to protect their right to choose whether to get one.

The union is going to promote the flu shot program with its members and Ryan said he expects a 96-per-cent participation rate.

"Right from the very beginning, we did offer that; we said if we could get the program changed from mandatory to voluntary, we would promote it with our members,'' he said.

"That's what I'm doing here today.''

Bill Kotsopoulos, who was suspended from his job in North Bay last December for refusing a flu shot, cheered Thursday's announcement and insisted he never had a problem with the idea of a shot.

Paramedics are required by law to abide by the wishes of their patients if they want to refuse treatment, Kotsopoulos said.

"That should be for all citizens, paramedics as well,'' he said. "That was the issue from the beginning.''

Kotsopoulos was coy when asked whether he'll get a flu shot now that it's voluntary -- although he hinted strongly that he will. "You can catch more bees with honey than you can with vinegar,'' he smiled.

Health officials, including Dr. Colin D'Cunha, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, were on hand Thursday to drive home the message the province's free immunization program is working.

During the 1999-2000 flu season, the year before the shots were introduced, 341 outbreaks were reported at long-term care facilities across Ontario -- 63 per cent more than the last two years combined.

Health-care workers, including police, fire and ambulance workers, should be considered at high risk of infection, D'Cunha said.

"All of us have the potential to transmit flu from one person to the other,'' he said. "For the people out there, I tell them it's fall, it's flu season time, it's time to make that appointment.''

Clement, meanwhile, waved off suggestions that the government had backed down and insisted that public health would not be placed at risk as a result of the compromise.

"I think this is a case of listening to more advice and I think we're mature enough to say, if there's a better way of doing this we're quite willing to look at that,'' he said.

"If you want to call it backing down, go ahead. I call it sensible public policy.''

The new program will ensure that when flu risk is high, ambulance crews go to extra lengths to avoid becoming infected -- particularly when dealing with high risk groups such as the sick, the elderly and infirm, Clement said.

And he admitted that a lot of grief might have been avoided had the government sat down with the union before trying to impose the mandatory program on its members.

"I think we've learned something here,'' Clement said. "Sometimes in life you learn the easy way and sometimes you learn the hard way.''