Montefiore did not return repeated requests for data, and representatives for One Brooklyn Health and the system that runs Flushing and Jamaica hospitals in Queens declined to disclose the requested numbers.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has declined to disclose the numbers of terminated workers at individual healthcare facilities across the state. Hochul has said the situation is too fluid, and she cited ongoing litigation over the removal of a religious exemption to the mandate.
“Any number we give you at that moment is not an accurate number,” she said at an Oct. 5 news conference.
Pledging more transparency, Hochul said Wednesday that healthcare facilities experienced a 3% workforce reduction due to the vaccine mandate, or about 34,000 workers. Among nearly 516,000 hospital workers statewide, fewer than 2% of employees resigned, retired, were fired or were put on unpaid leave due to the mandate.
New York City hospitals largely reported even lower rates. Mount Sinai Health System said Friday that about 1% of its full-time workforce left because of unwillingness to be vaccinated.
Other hospitals and health systems surveyed by Crain’s reported that less than 0.5% of their workforce had left voluntarily or involuntarily due to the mandate. NYU Langone said it terminated 75 employees of its 40,000-person workforce, and New York–Presbyterian shed fewer than 250 of 43,000. Brooklyn’s Maimonides Medical Center, which has 6,500 employees, reported 35 terminations but said it has about 100 more unvaccinated workers seeking religious exemptions.
At the Hospital for Special Surgery, which employs 5,000, nine employees were terminated and nine resigned. Staten Island’s Richmond University Medical Center reported a dozen resignations and declined to specify how many other employees were dismissed. SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn reported three resignations and retirements and no terminations.
Statewide, 90% of hospital workers are fully vaccinated, according to data released Wednesday.
