NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Gov. Kathy Hochul is preparing an executive order for possible health care staffing shortages across the state due to a coronavirus vaccine mandate.
The mandate, which requires health care workers to have received at least one shot by 11:59 p.m. Monday, could impact hundreds of staffers across the city and state.
"We are still in a battle against COVID to protect our loved ones, and we need to fight with every tool at our disposal," Governor Hochul said in a statement Saturday. "I am monitoring the staffing situation closely, and we have a plan to increase our health care workforce and help alleviate the burdens on our hospitals and other health care facilities.”
About 84% of the state’s 450,000 hospital workers were fully vaccinated as of Sept. 22, according to state data.
To fill in possible staffing gaps, Hochul said she is prepared to call in medically trained National Guard members and retirees; allow for such workers licensed in other states to report to New York; and expedite recent graduates’ path to work.
The executive order would declare a state of emergency that would allow the governor to make such staffing accommodations, Hochul’s office said in a press release.
Health care workers who do not receive a shot before midnight Tuesday can be fired without eligibility for unemployment insurance — absent a valid doctor-approved request for medical accommodation,” Hochul’s office said.
"Unvaccinated employees without exemptions that have been approved or are pending have until 11:59 p.m. Monday to get a shot or they will be let go on Tuesday,” a spokesperson for Northwell Health, the state’s largest health care provider, told 1010 WINS.