NY hospitals fire employees vax mandate

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-york-hospitals-face-staff-shortages-vaccine-mandate-kicks-2021-09-27/

NEW YORK, Sept 27 (Reuters) - New York hospitals on Monday began firing or suspending healthcare workers for defying a state order to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and resulting staff shortages prompted some hospitals to postpone elective surgeries or curtail services.

Healthcare workers who are fired for refusing to get vaccinated will not be eligible for unemployment insurance unless they are able to provide a valid doctor-approved request for medical accommodation, Hochul's office said.

https://www.lohud.com/story/news/coronavirus/2021/09/27/ny-covid-vaccine-mandate-deadline/5881882001/

NY COVID vaccine mandate: Thousands of medical workers got shots to keep jobs.

In the days and hours before New York state's COVID-19 vaccine mandate deadline Monday night, thousands of hospital and nursing home workers chose to get the shot to avoid losing their jobs, according to health care leaders and state data.

In nursing homes, roughly 8,700 workers decided to comply with the 

 mandate during the final push for vaccines, state data show. The percentage of nursing home staff receiving at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine increased to 89% as of Sunday, up from 83% on Wednesday.

Still, that means about 16,000 of the 145,000 total nursing home workers statewide had yet to comply with the medical worker vaccine mandate, which had some nursing home operators concerned about staffing shortages negatively impacting care for residents.

As for hospitals, the number of workers who waited to the 11th hour to comply with the vaccine mandate remained unclear late Monday, as the state-run database tracking the effort has not been updated since Wednesday.

Hospitals reported 84% of their roughly 450,000 workers were vaccinated as of Wednesday, up from 81% on Sept. 15. That left the future employment of about 72,000 hospital workers unclear, though many hospitals' policies allowed workers to get the first dose through the end of Monday in order to retain their jobs.

Meanwhile, several hospital networks statewide — including Northwell Health, Westchester Medical Center Health Network, Rochester Regional Health and University of Rochester Medical Center — on Monday reported worker vaccination rates between 94% and 99%.

Today is a significant deadline. It reflects my priority to just stop this virus dead in its track," Hochul said during a media briefing in the Bronx, referring to her plans to be among the first states nationally to enforce a strict vaccine mandate for medical workers.

"We're not relenting. We're not backing off," she added, calling any resulting staffing shortages preventable if workers get the shot by 11:59 p.m. Monday.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/nyregion/vaccine-health-care-workers-mandate.html