125 employees leave Indiana University Health system after refusing to vaccinate

At least 125 part-time employees at Indiana University Health system have lost their jobs for refusing COVID-19 vaccination. Under the Joe Biden administration’s recent vaccine mandates announced on September 9, some 80 million workers will have to provide proof of vaccination or undergo weekly testing for coronavirus. That includes employees, contractors and health-care workers at facilities that receive federal funding. Berkley Rios, an Indiana University Health spokeswoman, said a total of 125 employees, the equivalent of 61 full time employees, “left the organization” after choosing not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine following a two-week unpaid suspension period ending September 14.

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“Indiana University Health has put the safety and well-being of patients and team members first by requiring employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Sept. 1,” CNN quoted Rios as saying in a statement. The vacancies “will have a minimal effect on staffing,” according to Rios.

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“IU Health has been working to hire for positions in areas where team members have shown non-compliance,” Rios said.

In April, Houston Methodist, a network of eight hospitals with 26,000 employees, became one of the first major hospital systems in the US to mandate vaccination among employees. President Joe Biden on September 15 met CEOs of top companies like Disney and Microsoft to push the vaccine mandate in private sector.

Many Republicans have lambasted the vaccine mandates.

Two dozen states on September 16 threatened legal action against recent vaccine requirements as 24 Republican state attorneys general urged President Joe Biden to reconsider his decision

With only 54% of Americans having been fully vaccinated, the United States is lagging behind countries like Canada and Britain, which have fully vaccinated 69% and 65% of their populations, respectively.

The US is the worst-affected country with 672,643 coronavirus-related deaths as the highly-contagious Delta variant claims the lives of more than 1,500 Americans every day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.