NEW
YORK — Their movement started discreetly — just a handful of people
communicating on encrypted apps like WhatsApp and Signal. But in just
days, it had ballooned tenfold. And within two weeks, it had turned into
a full-blown public protest, with people waving picket signs to
denounce efforts to push them to receive coronavirus vaccines.
But
these were not just any vaccine resisters. They were nurses, medical
technicians, infection control officers and other staff who work at a
hospital in Staten Island, which has the highest rate of COVID-19
infection of any borough in New York City.
Outside Staten Island
University Hospital last week, as passing cars and fire trucks honked
supportively, employees chanted, “I am not a lab rat!”
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The
aggressive opposition to the vaccine and even regular testing at a
hospital in New York City — the epidemic’s onetime epicenter — shows the
challenges of reaching the unvaccinated when some of the very people
who could serve as role models refuse vaccination.
Some medical
workers at the Staten Island hospital are so fiercely opposed that they
call themselves “The Resistance,” after the rebel faction in “Star
Wars.” They are defending what they view as their inherent rights, and
their leader is gathering hospital workers from other states in an
attempt to create a nationwide movement.
Scientists and medical
professionals point out that those who refuse vaccines are potentially
endangering the lives of patients. “Vaccinations are critical to protect
our patients, our staff and protect the general community,” said Dr.
Mark Jarrett, chief medical officer at Northwell Health, which is the
state’s largest health care provider and runs Staten Island University
Hospital. “It’s a tough issue, but it’s our professional obligation to
always maintain that whatever we do, it’s for the safety of our
patients.”
He said he is hopeful that imminent federal approval of the Pfizer vaccine will persuade some of the unvaccinated to get shots.
As
the delta variant, the highly transmissible version of the coronavirus
that now makes up almost all new cases in the United States, drives a
surge throughout the country, public health officials are struggling to
boost vaccination rates among front-line medical workers. Among the
nation’s 50 largest hospitals, 1 in 3 workers who had direct contact
with patients had not received a single dose of a vaccine as of late
May, according to an analysis of data collected by the U.S. Department
of Health.
The Staten Island protests started last Monday when
Northwell Health began requiring unvaccinated staff to get weekly
coronavirus tests by nasal swab or risk losing their jobs. On the same
day, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that all health care workers across the
state would be required to have at least one dose of the vaccine by
Sept. 27, with limited exceptions for those with religious or medical
exemptions.
Northwell says that its mandate was put in place to
protect patients. A spokesperson said that the company was aiming to get
100% of its staff vaccinated and has used a variety of tactics to nudge
hesitant workers, like offering them spa days. Before the pandemic, the
hospital system encouraged flu vaccinations and required employees who
were not vaccinated for flu to wear masks when among patients.
Some
protesters, dismissive of scientific data and wary of mandates they say
infringe on their civil rights, say they are willing to lose their
jobs. Other workers said that they were considering moving out of state,
perhaps to Florida, where hospital requirements are looser and the
number of deaths and hospitalizations has steadily risen since June.
Across
New York, the majority of the state’s more than 600,000 health care
workers are vaccinated, but many are not. To date, 75% of the state’s
roughly 450,000 hospital workers, 74% of the state’s 30,000 adult care
facility workers and 68% of the state’s 145,500 nursing home workers
have been fully vaccinated, the state said.
Modes of persuasion
ranging from free cash to burgers to rides on the MTA failed to persuade
vaccine refusers, leading some hospital systems to take a harsher
approach, which in turn has spurred a backlash. Last month, the largest
health care union in the country held a rally after the
NewYork-Presbyterian hospital system mandated that workers receive at
least one shot of the vaccine by Sept. 1.
Participants in a recent
focus group at Staten Island University Hospital about how to persuade
employees to get vaccinated said they were told by officials that about
60% of the staff had been vaccinated. Northwell Health did not confirm
the figure but said that about 77% of the employees are vaccinated
across Northwell’s 23 hospitals in the city and the state.
The de
facto leader of the hospital employees is John Matland, 36, a CT scan
technician who is a good friend of Daniel Presti, the manager of Mac’s
Public House bar on Staten Island, which last year gained notoriety for
defying virus restrictions.
When indoor dining was banned in the
area because of high infection rates, the bar continued to serve local
customers inside, prompting the police to arrest Presti and to padlock
the bar.
Matland has coalesced a community of workers who said
they feel singled out because testing is not required for vaccinated
people, even though they are still able to get infected and transmit the
virus. Some also argue that they do not need the vaccine because they
previously had been infected with the coronavirus. (Experts have said
that prior infection does not fully protect people and have advised
everyone to get vaccinated.) Early data shows that breakthrough
infections are rising because of the delta variant, but experts say that
does not mean that the vaccines are ineffective. The available data
shows that unvaccinated people are still much more likely to contract
COVID-19, while vaccines drastically reduce the risk of hospitalization
and death from the virus.)
Matland participated in the focus group
aimed at understanding what punitive measures could motivate
unvaccinated employees to get the shots. The options listed were being
docked pay during leaves of absence if exposure requires quarantine,
becoming ineligible to participate in employee appreciation barbecues or
losing points that staff are allowed to cash in for gift cards and
products. Matland said he chose “none of the above.”
Even small
defections could put a strain on the Staten Island hospital. Staten
Island, a Republican enclave, had the highest rate of hospitalizations
from COVID-19 of any borough in July.
At the ultrasound
department, Matland said, three-quarters of staff have told him they
remained undecided about getting the vaccine. At the radiology
department at the hospital’s southern campus, Matland said 4 out of 10
staff are unvaccinated, and “many will not cave.”
“Losing four of us in radiology would cripple the entire department,” he said.
On Thursday, he was suspended without pay.
Nelly
DeSilvio, 43, a phlebotomist, said that half of the 30 people in her
department were unvaccinated. “If we all left, this would be huge. We
are already short-staffed now.”
Opposition has spread outside
Staten Island, including at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, another
Northwell hospital, where protests were held this week.
Sandra
Lindsay, director of Critical Care Nursing at the hospital on the
Queens/Long Island border and the first person in the United States to
be vaccinated, has been trying to persuade 25 co-workers out of 250 in
her department to get the jab.
“I don’t vaccine-shame,” she said.
“People should have a right to express what they feel, but our
profession as health care workers is rooted in science, and we should
practice what we preach.”
Although the aversion to vaccination
often falls along ideological lines or people’s attitudes toward
vaccines in general, the influence of the training that health care
workers receive is overlooked, said Rachael Piltch-Loeb, a researcher at
New York University who has surveyed unvaccinated health care workers.
“Medical
professionals are often trained to assess the situation on an
individual basis and made a recommendation, and so the notion that there
should be a universal health policy that applies to all people and that
is determined by the government rather than a medical professional on a
case-by-case basis is contrary to the way they are trained to work,”
she said.
Data has done little to dispel an entrenched distrust
among some health care workers. DeSilvio, for example, is convinced that
the majority of patients hospitalized with the coronavirus at the
Staten Island University Hospital were vaccinated, even though Northwell
officials report the opposite.
Other reluctant employees have similarly pointed to unusual isolated incidents as proof that vaccines cannot be trusted.
Yolanda
Mozdzen, 43, a medical assistant, was eager to be one of the first
among staff to get the vaccine. But less than five minutes after getting
a shot of the Moderna vaccine in December, a rash spread across her
body, and she started having a seizure.
The adverse reaction
triggered an autoimmune disorder, according to a letter from her doctor,
and eight months after receiving the vaccine, Mozdzen said she still
suffers ailments including short-term memory loss and vertigo.
Mozdzen
said she had to fight to get properly compensated. “I was left
penniless,” she said. “People would be more willing to get the vaccine
if they knew that they would be taken care of.”
Her experience, recounted among members chatting on the apps, has emboldened those who do not want to get vaccinated.
Last week, Mozdzen quit her job.
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