Southcoast Health fires 216 employees who refused to get COVID vaccine

FALL RIVER — The Southcoast Health system of hospitals couldn’t have made it any clearer to its 7,500 employees: Either get jabbed or stay away.

And that’s exactly what happened to 216 medical workers who were fired last Tuesday for refusing to comply with the nonprofit corporation’s mandate to get a COVID-19 vaccination shot.

Another 102 hospital staff members -— who also had been placed on unpaid leave last month for missing a Nov. 15 vaccination deadline — were previously granted a deadline extension up until Friday, Nov. 26.  

Those 102 employees did in fact return to work the following Monday after showing proof of receiving their first dose, according to Southcoast Health spokesperson Katie Cox.

Anyone getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine version only requires a single dose.

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Cox, in an email, said the 102 employees “will be tested regularly until they are fully vaccinated.”

She said another 151 Southcoast Health employees have been granted vaccine exemptions based either on the merits of their religious belief or for medical reasons.

But Cox said all of them must be tested regularly.

It's not clear whether any of the 216 fired employees will be eligible to reapply if they get vaccinated. 

Southcoast Health includes Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River; St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford; Tobey Hospital in Wareham; a psychiatric hospital in Dartmouth; two cancer treatment centers; and seven urgent care centers, including one in Middletown, Rhode Island.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had previously issued a requirement that all employees of hospitals and other health care facilities receiving Medicare or Medicaid financial benefits must get a first dose by Dec. 5 and be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4.

But that CMS order is now on hold since two federal district judges, one in Louisiana and the other in Missouri, issued a preliminary injunction enjoining, or prohibiting, that order from being carried out until either a final court decision has been rendered or another order is issued from an appellate court or the Supreme Court.

Individual hospital systems, however, are free to implement their own COVID-19 employee vaccination requirements.

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No deaths so far have been attributed to the omicron COVID variant, which to date has showed up in 38 countries, according to the World Health Organization.  

The WHO, according to Britain’s Daily Mail, “warned it could take weeks to determine how infectious the variant is, whether it causes more severe illness and how effective treatments and vaccines are against it.”

Charles Winokoor may be reached at cwinokoor@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism and subscribe to The Herald News today.