In the wake of news that the state will no longer enforce the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health-care workers as it works to repeal it, hospitals and health systems in our region are hopeful the news means relief to the chronic worker shortages they face. Those shortages, present before the pandemic began, only worsened as […]
In the wake of news that the state will no longer enforce the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health-care workers as it works to repeal it, hospitals and health systems in our region are hopeful the news means relief to the chronic worker shortages they face.
Those shortages, present before the pandemic began, only worsened as the pandemic dragged on. And for many workers, the August 2021 vaccine mandate was the final straw.
Fast forward to May 24, 2023, when the state announced that due to the changing landscape of the pandemic and evolving vaccine recommendations, the New York State Department of Health began the process of repealing the vaccine requirement for health-care workers.
“Throughout the public-health emergency, this vaccine requirement served as a critical public-health took, helping to protect both health-care workers and patients under their care. As the repeal of this regulation awaits consideration for approval by the Public Health and Health Planning Council, the department will not commence any new enforcement actions,” it said in a release that day.
The mandate took a toll on area health systems with the departures of many employees.
“Our workforce has been really taxed over the past couple of years,” Mohawk Valley Health System (MVHS) President/CEO Darlene Stromstad says. MVHS lost 208 employees who clearly stated they were leaving due to the vaccine mandate, she says, and the organization believes another 100 workers left due to the mandate but didn’t specifically say so.
Those departures came in the wake of an increasing number of employees who decided to bump up their retirement due to the pandemic or left for other reasons. “It was a really difficult time to manage our organization,” Stromstad recalls.
At the height of things, MVHS had nearly 1,300 job openings and a nurse-vacancy rate of about 25 percent, she says. Prior to the pandemic, that vacancy rate was around 8 or 9 percent, and “we thought that was horrific,” she says. The employees remaining on staff were great, she adds, working extra shifts and filling in where they could in order to keep things going.
Today, MVHS, which will open the new Wynn Hospital in downtown Utica this fall, has about 600 job openings and is in the process of reaching out to those employees who left due to the vaccine requirement to see if they would like to return.
Dubbed the boomerang campaign, Stromstad says so far conversations with past employees are promising. “One has returned, but we are in discussion with many others,” she notes.
Bassett Healthcare Network in Cooperstown did not suffer the same degree of employee loss due to the mandate, but it is also reaching out to those who chose to leave, Chief People and Diversity Officer Christine Pirri says.
On top of contacting those who left, Pirri says Bassett has also had new prospective employees reach out to Bassett now that the mandate is no longer enforced. “They want to come work for Bassett,” she says. “I’m optimistic this will encourage people to apply for jobs in health care.”
Currently, Bassett has about 800 job openings and is actively working to remove the vaccine mandate from posted job openings and added a statement that the vaccine is no longer required on its career page online.
Leaders at both organizations stress there are no hard feelings against those who left due to the mandate.
“I think it was difficult for all of us to navigate that this was not a Bassett decision, and we couldn’t not comply with this,” Pirri says of the mandate.
Stromstad also expressed appreciation for those who got the vaccine and stayed. “We really honor and respect them as we honor and respect others who were living their choice.”