COVID-19 jab mandates for healthcare workers have officially backfired, as many hospitals have found themselves so understaffed that they have been forced to rehire unvaccinated workers.
Alberta Health Services in Canada announced just before Christmas that healthcare workers who have not gotten their COVID-19 shots could resume their jobs on January 10 if they submitted to frequent testing. AHS claimed that it was only doing this because of the surge of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
“We stand by the Alberta Health Services workers immunization policy as we have from the start, and staff and physicians deserve credit for the high immunization coverage they’ve achieved,” said Jason Copping, Minister of Health. “In light of the risk posed by the Omicron variant, we need to adjust the policy to maximize capacity and avoid losing any staff if we can while still keeping patients safe. The immunization policy is about putting patients first, and this adjustment continues to put patients first by supporting Alberta Health Services in planning to add capacity as needed.”
Quebec announced last week that healthcare workers will be allowed to keep working even if they have tested positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, in Oregon, “30 percent of the nursing staff in some hospitals are made up of traveling nurses,” according to Matt Calzia, a registered nurse and member of the Oregon Nurses Association.
“In others, turn over [sic] is high,” he previously told Fox 12 Oregon. “The majority of a unit might be composed of traveling nurses during some shifts.”
Last week, President Joe Biden revealed that 1,000 military doctors, nurses, and medics are being mobilized to help hospitals with staffing problems, with FEMA stepping in to help states that are having issues keeping up.
“FEMA is deploying hundreds of ambulances and EMS crews to transport patients,” Biden said during a meeting with the National Governors Association, according to Fox News. “We’ve already deployed emergency response teams in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New Mexico. We’re ready to provide more hospital beds as well.”
New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) has declared a state of emergency and called in the National Guard for assistance.
“We have a massive nursing shortage,” Eric Smith, the statewide field director for the New York State Nurses Association, recently told the New York Daily News. “We have a vacuum in the double and triple digits all across the New York area.”
Perhaps these COVID-19 jab mandates weren’t such a good idea after all. Go figure.
This piece was written by James Samson on January 3, 2022. It originally appeared in RedVoiceMedia.com and is used by permission.
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