This past Monday, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) issued a statement in which she claimed that will still not allow the hiring of any healthcare worker that has declined to get get the COVID jab, despite the vaccine mandate she previously attempted to enforce being overturned via a court order and the fact that her state is suffering through a massive shortage of health care workers.
Out in Syracuse last week, a judge from the state Supreme Court officially struck down the state’s extreme vaccine mandate targeting medical staffers. The mandate was first set in place by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) back in 2021, and then Hochul elected to go along with the edict when she ended up securing the role of 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,” explained Jennifer Lewke, a reported based out of Rochester, to 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 stated that she has been thinking about legal options to try and push back against the court’s ruling which overturned the mandate and spotlights a number of recruitment efforts trying to secure more vaccinated healthcare workers.
The Democrat also highlighted that the shortage is “a problem,” while making the claim that the way to deal with things is not to hire previously fire unvaccinated workers. “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,” exclaimed the governor to Lewke. “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,” stated Hochul.
Lewke once again tried to question the 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 claimed that she was aware of “the balance” but claimed 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.”
