End Covid Vaccine Mandates for Healthcare Workers in New York State

The Honorable Kathy Hochul
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224

I am writing to you today in hopes that you will reconsider your current plan to continue mandates, requiring New York State healthcare workers to receive a COVID-19 vaccination as a requirement to be hired or continue in their line of work. The years of your life you have dedicated to public service and your genuine desire to provide a healthy and safe environment for all people who need medical care in New York State are truly admirable. Considering the current healthcare shortages, I urge you to consider the enormous strain these mandates have caused, not only for countless systems within healthcare but also for countless people in need of care. As we both know, emergency room wait times continue to break records. Nurses and allied medical staff have never worked more hours. Facilities that closed due to the pandemic have still never reopened. These effects are directly related to the tens of thousands of healthcare workers who lost or left their jobs due to mandates. This alone should inform our leadership that these mandates need to be ended immediately.

Specifically, I ask that you support the Citizens of New York in the following ways:

• End the fight to keep COVID-19 vaccination mandates.
• Allow state-run medical facilities to hire professional and allied medical staff regardless of vaccination status.
• Offer state healthcare workers who ended their employment in late 2021 their former positions back with no penalty to their retirement or other benefits.
• Encourage all healthcare workers to fill all positions and consider options in the state system to greatly reduce or eliminate employee overtime.

Full Staffing is Important

Allied healthcare workers, including nurses, hold a pivotal role in the delivery of healthcare services. Staffing issues can impact the effective delivery of services across the patient’s treatment. The care they provide in Hospitals, emergency rooms, mental health facilities, nursing homes, and countless other settings requires adequate staffing and effective employee retention. Aside from endangering patients, understaffing can force the available nurses out of New York State facilities due to work-related stress and turnover.

Now, more than ever, hospitals and other medical settings need to establish safe and effective measures to re-engage medical professionals into the workforce. This includes bringing back as many employees as possible who were dislocated from their jobs during the pandemic. The time has come to allow the same people who worked so hard to save lives at the beginning of the pandemic, despite fears of how that might affect them or their families, to return to the workforce and be honored for the sacrifices they made.

Sincerely,