BY DAYO ADESULU with Agency Report
An employer in the United States has sacked about 1,400 employees for refusing to obtain the COVID-19 vaccination. which the employer made compulsory for all staff.
The 1,400 employees who were sacked were said to be employed by Northwell Health in New York State’s largest healthcare provider.
Joe Kemp, a spokesman, told Reuters that Northwell Health sacked the 1,400 over refusal to obtain the COVID-19 vaccination,
Northwell Health has just done what many other healthcare companies have done by terminating workers appointments over refusal to take the COVID vaccine jab.
Therefore, the recently fired employees represent a small percentage of Northwell’s workforce of more than 76,000, all of whom are now inoculated.
New York’s vaccination mandate for healthcare workers went into effect last week. Several other states, including California, have imposed similar measures.
Officials have credited the requirements with increasing the rate of vaccination, though a small number of employees have decided they would rather lose their jobs than get shots.
Northwell announced its vaccine mandate in August, weeks before the state requirement. The company’s mandate extended to both clinical and non-clinical workers.
“Our goal was not to terminate employees. Our goal was to get people vaccinated.”
Kemp said the terminations will have no impact on patient care at Northwell’s 23 hospitals and other facilities.
“Northwell regrets losing an employee under such circumstances. We owe it to our staff, our patients and the communities we serve to be 100 per cent vaccinated against COVID-19,” the company said in a statement.”