Hochul Won’t Hire Back Unvaxxed Health Care Workers Despite Overturned Mandate, Worker Shortage
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) indicated Monday that she won’t permit the hiring of health care workers who’ve declined to get the COVID despite her vaccine mandate being overturned by the courts and a serious healthcare worker shortage.
A state Supreme Court judge in Syracuse last week struck down The statewide mandate for vaccines for medical staffers. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a former governor (D-NY), implemented the mandate in 2021. Hochul later supported the edict as she became governor.
“Our healthcare systems are in desperate need of staff right now, we’ve had ambulances waiting five hours at our local emergency rooms to unload patients,” Rochester-based reporter Jennifer Lewke told Hochul. “The hospitals and nursing homes say they’re waiting for DOH [New York State Department of Health] guidance on whether they can hire any of those workers back. What’s the latest on that?”
Hochul said she’s considering legal options to challenge the decision that overturned the mandate and highlighted recruitment efforts for more vaccinated healthcare workers.
The Democrat acknowledged, however, that there is a shortage “a problem,” While they claim that it is possible to employ unvaccinated employees, “I don’t think the answer is to have someone who comes in who is sick, be exposed to someone who can give them coronavirus, give them COVID-19,” Lewke was informed by the governor. “I don’t know that that’s the right answer. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s not.”
“I think everybody who goes into a healthcare facility or nursing home should have the assurance, and their family members should know, that we have taken all steps to protect the public health and that includes making sure that those who come in contact with them at their time of most vulnerability, when they are sick or elderly, will not pass on the virus,” Hochul was added.
Lewke once again pressed Governor. “Couldn’t there be other safety precautions, masking? Or other mechanisms in order to allow some of them back in? I mean we’re at crisis level here in our hospitals and nursing homes.”
Hochul said she understood “the balance” However, she maintained that she “cannot put people into harm’s way, because when you’re going to a health care facility, you expect that you’re not going to come out sicker than you went in, I think that’s something every New Yorker would expect.”
Hochul claims that the virus can only be passed on to unvaccinated individuals, but according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it’s “likely that vaccinated people with breakthrough infection or people infected without symptoms can spread the virus to others.”
NY Governor Kathy Hochul claims she won’t employ unvaccinated healthcare workers, despite that mandate being overturned.
“I don’t think the answer is to have someone who comes in who is sick be exposed to someone who can give them COVID-19.”pic.twitter.com/qy6UICxGd4
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) January 24, 2023
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