New York ’s Vaccine Mandate Is Working, But Hospitals Are Struggling With the Fallout

By almost any measure, New York State’s requirement that health care workers get vaccinated against COVID-19, which was announced on Aug. 16 and went into effect Sept. 27, has been a success. Thousands of reticent health care workers across the Empire State have been vaccinated over the last month. Among hospital staff specifically, 87% were fully vaccinated as of Sept. 28, up from 77% as of Sept. 24. (A similar mandate governing education workers in New York City, which went into effect today, has also resulted in a surge in vaccinations.) However, even health care leaders who support vaccination and vaccine mandates say that the requirement exacerbated the New York health care sector’s pre-existing condition: staffing shortages, which existed before the pandemic but have become a full-blown crisis amid the outbreak. Given that the Biden Administration is planning to issue a federal mandate that could cover 17 million health care facility workers across the United States, the problems plaguing New York could soon spread elsewhere, too. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The vaccine mandate has taken thousands of employees out of New York’s health care workforce, according to the Iroquois Hospital Association (IHA), which represents 50 hospitals across 16 New York counties, as well as reports from other hospitals in the state. An IHA survey of 33 New York hospitals conducted on Sept. 13, before the mandate went into effect, found a job vacancy rate...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news