New York’s largest private healthcare provider, Northwell Health, said Monday it was “proud to announce” its entire workforce is vaccinated against Covid-19—a milestone that came after it fired 1,400 unvaccinated employees.
“Northwell Health is proud to announce that our workforce – the largest in New York State – is 100 percent vaccinated. This allows us to continue to provide exceptional care at all of our facilities, without interruption and remain open and fully operational,” the hospital network said in a statement.
“Northwell has taken a rapid, aggressive approach to move successfully toward full vaccination compliance while maintaining continuity of care and ensuring that our high standard of patient safety is not compromised in any way. We thank the vast majority of our employees who did the right thing and got vaccinated.”
New York is requiring that the state’s more than 650,000 hospital and nursing home workers be vaccinated, a mandate that started to take effect last week, prompting tens of thousands of employees to get their shots. Others filed lawsuits, and courtrooms across the state are determining when and how to allow exemptions to the requirement.
New York’s health care mandate is particularly strict: Employees do not have the option for weekly testing or exemptions for religious reasons, though the latter is being challenged in the courts. (NYT)
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Acknowledging the 1,400 workers it fired, Northwell said it “regrets losing any employee under such circumstances, but as health care professionals and members of the largest health care provider in the state, we understand our unique responsibility to protect the health of our patients and each other. We owe it to our staff, our patients and the communities we serve to be 100 percent vaccinated against COVID-19.”
Just now, Northwell Health, New York's largest healthcare provider fired 1,400 unvaccinated workers.
— KEVIN SURDI (@Surdi4Congress) October 5, 2021
This is going to be a disaster if it keeps up. I’m running for Congress to put an end to this kind of insanity.
As Katie wrote last week, when it comes to the point where health care employees, who were hailed as heroes last year, are getting fired for refusing to get vaccinated, "the pandemic is over."
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