Healthcare workers facing a vaccine mandate in New York state have been quitting, leaving hospitals that were already understaffed with no options but to turn away patients. The vaccine requirement includes no religious exemptions, sparking a heated debate in the state.
The issue is becoming so severe that the state may be forced to declare a state of emergency in order to call upon the National Guard, as well as retired healthcare workers and workers from other states. New York Governor Kathy Hochul says that the state will stand by the mandate, introduced by her predecessor Andrew Cuomo, even if a significant number of workers quit.
"We are still in a battle against COVID to protect our loved ones, and we need to fight with every tool at our disposal," Hochul said.
One hospital in Lowville, NY, will be forced to stop offering maternity services after six of its staff quit rather than receive the vaccine. According to the hospital's CEO, Gerald Cayer, the hospital was already struggling to find staff before the mandate came into effect.
"We have a smaller population in Lewis County. We have yet even a smaller population of a very skilled technical workforce. Any adjustment that occurs there can impact whether or not a service is available tomorrow," Cayer told reporters.
84% of New York's healthcare workers have already received the vaccine. Supporters of the mandate, including Gov. Hochul, say that New Yorkers deserve access to safe and reliable medical care.
"[Patients] have a right to be treated by someone who will not make them get sicker. My job, No. 1 in this state, is to keep people safe," Hochul told reporters.
However, the mandate has been met by several protests across the state from religious advocates. Danielle Robar, a registered nurse at a hospital near Potsdam spoke to reporters at one of the protests.
"They took away our religious exemption, which was my plan at first," Robar said. "And now, on September 27, I'm going to lose my job."
The state has said that anyone who is fired because of their refusal to comply with the mandate will not be eligible for unemployment insurance unless they have a valid medical excuse.
The state's removal of religious exemptions is facing legal challenges from seventeen anonymous medical professionals who claim that their First Amendment religious freedoms have been violated. According to the attorney representing the group, Steve Crampton, the plaintiffs in this case have a moral objection to taking the vaccine because the development process apparently contradicts their pro-life Christian beliefs.
"These vaccines, all of them that are now available in the U.S., have been developed by the use of either the testing or the development itself in which they use aborted baby tissue," Crampton said.
While Pfizer (NASDAQ: PFE) and Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA) did use fetal cells during the testing phase of development, none of the COVID vaccines contain any aborted fetal material. The vaccines have been approved by multiple religious organizations, including the Catholic Church.
This suit is one of the dozens of similar cases across the country. Legal experts, like Jennifer Piatt, a lawyer with the Network for Public Health Law, say that these cases don't have much merit.
"There really is no fundamental right to avoid a vaccination," Piatt told reporters. "Whether the Supreme Court will want to take up cases that are articulating religious freedom-based arguments that they want to specifically address, that is totally up to the court."
On Oct. 12, a judge will consider the legal challenge against the mandate, including any requests for religious exemptions applied for up to that point. In the meantime, it will be up to employers to decide what to do with workers who refuse to comply with the mandate.
Some large New York medical systems are encouraging their employees to get vaccinated before that mid-Oct. cut-off, with many saying employees will be put on unpaid leave if they don't get vaccinated before company-wide deadlines.
While religious beliefs in rural communities may be driving medical professionals to quit rather than receive the vaccine, according to medical industry insiders, the staffing shortages in less rural areas aren't being caused by vaccine hesitancy. Instead, the pandemic severely exacerbated a pre-existing issue: nurse burnout. After the influx of COVID-19 hospitalizations, a surge in medical staff mistreatment, and an increase in the general distrust of medical professionals, many workers quit rather than continue to face abuse from their patients and communities.
"Yes, nurses are leaving the profession, but the so-called 'nursing shortage' should not be blamed on nurses alone. There have been whispers for years. Now we are screaming for change," chief nursing officer and correspondent for Nurse.org, Alice Benjamin, said in a statement. "We are overworked, underpaid, and are collectively feeling the effects of burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral injury."
"The problem is not with nurses or nursing. The problem is that nurses have been so busy taking care of others that no one has taken care of them," she added.