Human Lives Human Rights: New York’s largest private healthcare Northwell Health, announced Monday that it fired 1,400 workers for unwilling to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Northwell Health announced that upwards of 1,400 employees “had to exit” on Monday, Oct. 4 after they chose to remain unvaccinated against the virus, a Northwell spokesman announced.
With the ousted employee, Northwell employees are now 100 percent vaccinated, officials said.
“Having a fully vaccinated workforce is an important measure in our duty to protect the health and safety of our staff, our patients and the communities we serve,” Northwell Health’s vice president of public relations Barbara Osborn said the statement.
“As health care professionals and members of the largest health care provider in the state, we understand our unique responsibility to protect the health of our patients and each other.”
Northwell’s vaccine policy requires both clinical and non-clinical staff to be immunized, which is a step beyond the state’s mandate.
Last week, the hospital network fired roughly two dozen “unvaccinated leaders” for refusing to get their jab.
Other hospital systems around the country have faced similar dilemmas. Last week a North Carolina hospital system fired 175 unvaccinated workers for failing to comply with the state vaccine mandate.
The governments policies announcing new vaccine policies, requiring people to get inoculated against Covid-19 in order to keep their jobs, go to the office, dine in restaurants, or attend indoor performances seem to be effective in persuading at least some unvaccinated people to get their shots.
They’re also bound to be controversial. One of the most common arguments raised by dissenters is that vaccine mandates infringe upon unvaccinated people’s human rights and civil liberties.
Compulsory vaccination is an interference with the human right of bodily integrity, which is a part of the right to private life enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as in the European Convention on Human Rights.
People have the freedom to refuse vaccination for personal, ideological, or religious reasons, and (in the cases of those who worry about the safety of the vaccine and its side effects, despite overwhelming evidence that vaccines are safe) the right to be protected from harm.
