New York Hospital to Pause Delivering Babies After Unvaccinated Workers Resign En Masse

Cicada 5

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2015
2,479
1,169
118
Country
Nigeria
A hospital in New York has announced that it will temporarily stop delivering babies following many resignations from maternity unit workers who refuse to get vaccinated against covid-19.

Six employees at Lewis County General Hospital in Lowville, about 50 miles north of Utica, resigned in recent days, WWNY 7 News reports. Their resignations, along with more than two dozen back in August following the state’s announcement that all healthcare workers in New York must receive at least one dose of a vaccine by Sept. 27, have left the maternity unit unable to function. The hospital’s pause on delivering babies will last two weeks starting Sept. 24.

“If we can pause the service and now focus on recruiting nurses who are vaccinated, we will be able to reengage in delivering babies here in Lewis County,” Gerald Cayer, the Lewis County Health System’s Chief Executive Officer, told WWNY 7 News.




“Our hope is as we get closer [to the deadline], the numbers will increase of individuals who are vaccinated, fewer individuals will leave and maybe, with a little luck, some of those who have resigned will reconsider,” he continued. “We are not alone. There are thousands of positions that are open north of the Thruway and now we have a challenge to work through, you know, with the vaccination mandate.”
 

stroopwafel

Elite Member
Jul 16, 2013
3,031
357
88
I think that will become an increasing problem not just with unvaccinated healthcare workers but every kind of industry where skilled workers have put demands on them. The workers just aren't there anymore b/c boomers are retiring and there just aren't enough young people to replace them. Sooner or later employers and authorities will have to bargain on equal terms will entire crucial infrastructure not come to a standstill. People with practical/trade skills are becoming a rarity.
 

XsjadoBlayde

~it ends here~
Apr 29, 2020
3,216
3,354
118
If the last few months of revelations are anything to go by, I would be incredibly unsurprised if it were to come out soon that this idea was not the brainchild of those specific workers, but instead an outside, well-funded source once again. There's a consistent artificial push going on, astroturfing conspiracy theories to make it appear like grassroots movements when they are in fact the total opposite. America doesn't seem like a place that makes striking or compulsively leaving your job a financially viable possibility neither, so would be interested in how they are funding their newfound time off too.
 

stroopwafel

Elite Member
Jul 16, 2013
3,031
357
88
If the last few months of revelations are anything to go by, I would be incredibly unsurprised if it were to come out soon that this idea was not the brainchild of those specific workers, but instead an outside, well-funded source once again. There's a consistent artificial push going on, astroturfing conspiracy theories to make it appear like grassroots movements when they are in fact the total opposite. America doesn't seem like a place that makes striking or compulsively leaving your job a financially viable possibility neither, so would be interested in how they are funding their newfound time off too.
People with nursing degrees can get work anywhere else easy. There will never be a surplus of healthcare workers in aging societies. Supply and demand and all that.
 

Worgen

Follower of the Glorious Sun Butt.
Legacy
Apr 1, 2009
14,415
3,393
118
Gender
Whatever, just wash your hands.
So they are resigning since they won't be able to spread covid as much as they want? Fucken stupid assholes.
 

Gergar12

Elite Member
Legacy
Apr 24, 2020
3,275
794
118
Country
United States
Cut their pay and pension.

Great, it's in a rural county, and those are the ones suffering the most from covid. The irony.
 

Trunkage

Nascent Orca
Legacy
Jun 21, 2012
8,684
2,879
118
Brisbane
Gender
Cyborg
Well, I don't know about the US. But here is Australia, we've had a f-load of Covid babies. So much so that they ALREADY were pushing back induction. You couldn't book one until you were two weeks overdue. Everyday for the year has had more babies per day than the last decade.

So this 'plug them up for later' vibe is already happening

I would normally say that losing so few workers wouldn't actually matter. But if the US is anything like Australia, they need every person they can get.

Also, antivaxxers are rife in the nursing industry. I could may be convinced about other nurses not getting vaccinated but midwives? The baby is more important
 

Cheetodust

Elite Member
Jun 2, 2020
1,581
2,290
118
Country
Ireland
I think that will become an increasing problem not just with unvaccinated healthcare workers but every kind of industry where skilled workers have put demands on them. The workers just aren't there anymore b/c boomers are retiring and there just aren't enough young people to replace them. Sooner or later employers and authorities will have to bargain on equal terms will entire crucial infrastructure not come to a standstill. People with practical/trade skills are becoming a rarity.
It's not even that those skills are a rarity. I know plenty of skilled workers working in coffee right now because honestly the pay in an entry level job in their field is not worth the additional hassle.
People with nursing degrees can get work anywhere else easy. There will never be a surplus of healthcare workers in aging societies. Supply and demand and all that.
When all this kicked off ireland put out a call to all our healthcare workers abroad, because a huge number leave the country because of how garbage the HSE is to work for. Thousands came home to help out in the crisis. Maybe a couple hundred were actually taken on.

When my friend who qualified as a nurse in Scotland wanted to move home after a few years it took months and months of hassling the HSE to get all his paperwork sorted (they only operated through post, and wouldn't reply to email. This was all while a billboard stood outside my apartment building encouraging nurses to move home as part of a government initiative. They advertised to people abroad with billboards in ireland. Really hard to believe there was any good faith effort their to get healthcare workers home and working in ireland.

I only bring this up to point out that people with nursing degrees may often be in high demand, but if you have a government whose goal is to absolutely trash your healthcare service so they can ultimately use it as an excuse to privatise then not so much.

Incidentally my home town with a population of 22000 only ever has two Gardai on duty at any given time. My friends hometown and the next town over both shut down their police stations and are served by the station in a town next to them. Some police stations in the country are only open during business hours. It genuinely wouldn't be a surprise if Fine Gael thought the police should be run privately for profit.
 

stroopwafel

Elite Member
Jul 16, 2013
3,031
357
88
It's not even that those skills are a rarity. I know plenty of skilled workers working in coffee right now because honestly the pay in an entry level job in their field is not worth the additional hassle.
When all this kicked off ireland put out a call to all our healthcare workers abroad, because a huge number leave the country because of how garbage the HSE is to work for. Thousands came home to help out in the crisis. Maybe a couple hundred were actually taken on.

When my friend who qualified as a nurse in Scotland wanted to move home after a few years it took months and months of hassling the HSE to get all his paperwork sorted (they only operated through post, and wouldn't reply to email. This was all while a billboard stood outside my apartment building encouraging nurses to move home as part of a government initiative. They advertised to people abroad with billboards in ireland. Really hard to believe there was any good faith effort their to get healthcare workers home and working in ireland.

I only bring this up to point out that people with nursing degrees may often be in high demand, but if you have a government whose goal is to absolutely trash your healthcare service so they can ultimately use it as an excuse to privatise then not so much.

Incidentally my home town with a population of 22000 only ever has two Gardai on duty at any given time. My friends hometown and the next town over both shut down their police stations and are served by the station in a town next to them. Some police stations in the country are only open during business hours. It genuinely wouldn't be a surprise if Fine Gael thought the police should be run privately for profit.
Yeah, but privatizing clinics and elderly homes only means nurses can ask more money b/c they usually pay better. Lots of doctors also moonlight as plastic surgeons in private clinics for example. Regardless of how the amount of nurses(or other healthcare workers) is divided they remain a limited resource. The biggest problem is aging populations and the expectation that healthcare will continue to be provided like it is now. In my country a government report was just published that estimated one in three(!) people would need to work in healthcare in the future to satisfy ballooning demand if all else remains equal. Costs rise due to more expensive treatments and longer life spans all the time but so does demand due to the increasingly skewed ratio of old vs young people. At one point you will have literally half of GDP be invested in healthcare and it still won't be enough nor will you even have the amount of people to carry out the work.

I don't know the situation in Ireland but in most European countries when government can't guarantee accessible healthcare for all anymore then they are heading for a swift exit. That is why they keep kicking the can down the road and pretend like it's not a total disaster as patients need to plan their appointment months in advance and nurses quitting their job b/c of workload and low pay.

The entire situation just doesn't allow to demand nurses to get vaccinated as guaranteeing people necessary care is already getting really precarious. Similar problems exist in domains like construction, maintenance, logistics etc. For a long time society looked down on people who work with their hands(if not that atleast it's appreciated less than graduating from college and/or white collar work) but good luck trying to intellectualize yourself out of lack of housing, dilapidated infrastructure, cargo that can't be moved or indeed grandpa's cathether that urgently needs to be changed. People say the problem is capitalism but I don't think that's true. In a true capitalist system where the market isn't regulated by the political cronies of large corporations those same workers could ask big bucks for their skills.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Specter Von Baren

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,925
784
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
So they are resigning since they won't be able to spread covid as much as they want? Fucken stupid assholes.
You make mandates to solve one problem and only make another problem, this is why mandates don't work. Every other country doesn't have vaccine mandates, and the UK just scrapped their plans for a mandate yesterday.

These healthcare workers have rational reasons to not get the vaccine. Nurses only have about a 50% vaccination rate and it's not because they're stupid idiots that think microchips are in the vaccines or some stupid shit. They worked without vaccines or covid treatments for ~1 year and didn't even get proper PPE and that was apparently "safe" and now your gonna say it's unsafe for them to work now? That doesn't make any sense. Plus, a lot of nurses already got infected during the pandemic obviously so they don't need the vaccine anyway. Every single study has said previously infected don't need the vaccine. And the foremost US vaccine expert, Paul Offit, has said the same thing. There's no reason to get vaccinated if you already had covid, that's real fucking science.
 

Hades

Elite Member
Mar 8, 2013
1,966
1,430
118
Country
The Netherlands
You'd think those working in a hospital would know better than to be anti vax.
 

Seanchaidh

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 21, 2009
5,241
3,065
118
Country
United States of America
You'd think those working in a hospital would know better than to be anti vax.
You would, but then they also get very well acquainted with the business practices of the healthcare, insurance, and pharmaceutical industry blob, so it makes some sense that they'd become very cynical. At least in the United States.
 

Worgen

Follower of the Glorious Sun Butt.
Legacy
Apr 1, 2009
14,415
3,393
118
Gender
Whatever, just wash your hands.
You make mandates to solve one problem and only make another problem, this is why mandates don't work. Every other country doesn't have vaccine mandates, and the UK just scrapped their plans for a mandate yesterday.

These healthcare workers have rational reasons to not get the vaccine. Nurses only have about a 50% vaccination rate and it's not because they're stupid idiots that think microchips are in the vaccines or some stupid shit. They worked without vaccines or covid treatments for ~1 year and didn't even get proper PPE and that was apparently "safe" and now your gonna say it's unsafe for them to work now? That doesn't make any sense. Plus, a lot of nurses already got infected during the pandemic obviously so they don't need the vaccine anyway. Every single study has said previously infected don't need the vaccine. And the foremost US vaccine expert, Paul Offit, has said the same thing. There's no reason to get vaccinated if you already had covid, that's real fucking science.
No, NO NONO NO NO fucken No. The only reason to scrap vaccine mandate plans is because dumb fucks might riot against them, and that isn't a good reason. This shit has gone on long enough, people can't be trusted with their own health let a lone the health of other people so fuck that noise, mandate this shit so we can deal with this stupid disease.

Even if you caught the disease and have immunity from it that way, the vaccine will still boost that immunity. Cause spoilers, if you caught it before the delta variant, you can catch it again. Plus our immune system "forgets" immunities over time for some diseases and this seems to be one where that happens so you can catch it again. Its retarded not to take reasonable steps to lower the odds as much as possible, especially if you are working in the medical field. This people are greedy fucks who don't give a damn about infecting others, just like all the rest of the dumb shits who won't get vaccinated even though they can. You do have better immunity to the disease if you caught it then recovered then if you just got the vaccine, but you have even better immunity to it if you have both.

 

Seanchaidh

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 21, 2009
5,241
3,065
118
Country
United States of America
vaccine mandates seem like they'll only get you to a COVID that works like a deadlier seasonal flu. if you want to extinguish the virus, you have to actually stop it spreading entirely and the vaccine, while helpful in that regard, is manifestly not capable of that by itself even if everyone is vaccinated.

but endemic COVID with a need for new vaccines every so often and possible booster shots and so forth is great for pharmaceutical companies, as are the long-term treatment needs of an ever-expanding population of people experiencing COVID aftereffects. And the vaccines are minimally disruptive to the exploitation of labor. Even still, some vaccine "hesitancy" is actually people who are so overworked that they don't believe they have enough time available to get vaccinated, which ought to be horrifying if you think about it for more than a few seconds.