COVID vaccine passports are being used by governments all over the world to increase vaccination rates and encourage more people to receive the vaccine. As would be expected, the result has been an increased proportion of employees quitting their jobs rather than being compelled to show a vaccine passport to be able to work.
In particular, hospital staff shortages are becoming more prevalent across the country as unvaccinated workers are choosing to leave their employment after the Biden administration mandated that the approximately 17 million workers in health institutions that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid funding have to show a vaccine passport or lose their jobs.
As a result of this, departments of hospitals are closing or reducing healthcare services due to staff shortages caused by the mandates.
With hospitals already stretched thin, the sudden drop in workforce is the difference between some services being halted or discontinued due to a lack of manpower.
Due to a staffing deficit caused by personnel quitting over vaccine regulations, at least one hospital in upstate New York has had to halt maternity treatment and deliveries.
Also, hospital rooms aren’t getting clean sheets and the cafeteria can’t provide hot food due to a staffing deficit in at least one scenario.
Another report from Indiana describes a situation similar to that in North Carolina and New York, with healthcare personnel departing to escape obligatory vaccination.
Moreover, KCBD reports that Brownfield Regional Medical Center in Texas may have to close if the federal vaccine mandate is enforced because of the large number of employees who could resign.
Jerry Jasper, The CEO at Brownfield Regional Medical Center stated to KCBD that “Probably 20 to 25 percent of my staff will have to go away if that’s the case.”
Another CEO, Gerald Cayer of the Lewis County Health System expressed hope that this is a transitory issue as he works with the state Department of Health to prevent the maternity unit from permanently closing because six of the hospital’s maternity unit employees resigned to avoid receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
“There are 165 hospital employees who have not received a COVID-19 vaccine, which is 27% of the workforce, the other 73%, or 464 employees, have already received the vaccine. If we can pause the service and now focus on recruiting nurses who are vaccinated, we will be able to re engage in delivering babies here in Lewis County,” he said.
Additionally, a representative of Indiana University Health, Indiana’s largest hospital system with over thirty thousand employees, told Newsweek that “125 employees, the equivalent of 61 full-time employees, chose not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and have left the organization.”
The situation will likely become more acute in the coming months when an increasing number of mandates take effect this month and in November.
