New York State's largest private hospital system laid off 1,400 workers who wouldn't get vaccinated against COVID-19, a spokesperson for the health care network confirmed Monday afternoon.
Hospital and nursing home workers were required to get at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by September 27th, under a state mandate first announced in mid-August. Last week, Northwell said it started warning employees and planned to begin layoffs starting with the highest-paid workers who refused the shots. Now, the hospital's vaccination compliance rate is up to 100 percent for the roughly 75,000 staff that remain.
"Northwell 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," said Jason Molinet, a Northwell Health spokesperson. "We owe it to our staff, our patients and the communities we serve to be 100 percent vaccinated against COVID-19."
The layoffs represent less than 2 percent of workers employed at the network's 23 hospitals and more than 800 outpatient clinics.
Elsewhere, an estimated 5,000 employees, or 12 percent, of New York City's public hospital system hadn't been vaccinated when the state mandate went into effect last week. Stephanie Guzman, a spokesperson for Health + Hospitals, said the agency was up to 93 percent compliance as of Monday, and that the remaining 3,000 holdouts were being put on unpaid leave.
As the health care mandate went into effect last week, hospitals andnursing homes saw their COVID-19 vaccination rates improve among staff, with 92 percent of workers receiving at least one dose as of last week, according to New York state officials.
Monday also ushered in the first set of classes following New York City's deadline for public school teachers to be vaccinated. That mandate survived a late legal challenge, which Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor swatted down Friday evening. An estimated 18,000 education staff rushed to get their shots over the past 10 days.
With options running short, protesters marched through city streets to decry the mandates once again.
Among them was John Matland, 36, an imaging technician at Northwell's Staten Island University Hospital who had led other protests against the vaccine mandates over the summer. Matland was fired on Friday for refusing vaccination.
"[It's] leading to a group of unemployed healthcare professionals, [who are] angry. They want to organize. They're looking to do civil disobedience to claim our freedoms back,” he said. "You’ve got a bunch of freedom worriers that are unemployed with nothing to lose."
This story was updated to include a comment from New York City Health + Hospitals and to clarify that 18,000 Department of Education employees were vaccinated over the past 10 days, not over the weekend.
