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| A nursing home employee getting a COVID-19 booster shot at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale. Many New York nursing homes have had trouble filling staff vacancies after the state's vaccine mandate started. AP Photo/Seth Wenig |
ALBANY — Nursing homes desperately seeking relief from staffing shortages tied to New York’s new COVID-19 vaccine mandate are being told “we do not have any staff to offer you or any other nursing homes” upon calling the hotline specifically set up to help plug vacancies, The Post has learned.
“Despite what the media says, currently, we do not have any staff to offer you or any other nursing homes. I will log you in our system,” a state Department of Health staffer manning the agency’s “Surge and Flex Operations Center” hotline told one nursing home, when they asked about getting reinforcements on Oct. 4 — just one week after the mandate’s effective date.
“Feel free to call with updates, but no need to call daily hoping this will be your lucky day,” the operator told the disappointed nursing home, which wished to remain anonymous.
Callers receive an “intake number” and assigned a case, which is then reviewed by the state and severity of need is assessed, according to a source familiar with the hotline.
The stark reality contradicts Gov. Kathy Hochul’s public statements since the mandate took effect Sept. 27, as well as an executive order she signed declaring there’s a reserve of healthcare employees ready to backfill positions following resignations or terminations.
The mandate requires all healthcare workers in healthcare facilities to be vaccinated from the deadly virus — unless they have an approved medical exemption — or else employers can fire them.
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Another nursing home industry source reached out on Sept. 29 to the hotline who was told “they do not have any staff.”
“They are aware that it was mentioned in the news regarding vaccine mandate staffing issues,” wrote the source, according to internal communications obtained by The Post.
But Hochul dug in during a Tuesday press conference when probed about the state’s refusal to release data pertaining to worker shortages in nursing homes or hospitals, which are required to be reported to the DOH in daily surveys.
She argued healthcare facilities should call the DOH’s “24/7 operations center” to request staff and may even have access to student nurses. In the worst case scenario the National Guard could be deployed, although the state has not done so.
“We set up a system to be responsive to any institution that needed help,” Hochul told reporters in Albany Tuesday.
“We set up all these opportunities, whether it was using student nurses, whether people with licenses had lapsed, whether or not someone would be coming in from another state…and so we’ve reached out. We offered help. Very few have taken [us] up on it, because they are also required to have their own emergency staffing plans themselves,” said Hochul.
A DOH rep told The Post that since last Monday, the agency has received “nearly 50 calls” related to staffing requests. The rep would not say whether or not any healthcare staff were actually deployed to facilities, instead saying “the Department is advising facilities on internal steps they can take to address staff shortages, as well as ways to take advantage of the Executive Order.”
But the statewide vaccination rate of elder care staffers with at least one shot has increased to 97 percent statewide according to the latest DOH data. It’s up from 92 percent of staffers on the day the mandate was announced.
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The statewide vaccination rate of elder care staffers with at least one shot is 97 percent, according to the latest DOH data, up from 92 percent of staffers on the day the mandate was announced.
Although elder care facility residents and staff were first in line last December to get shots, efforts to boost vaccination rates have been met with resistance.
Nursing homes could be on track to lose more staffers within the coming week tied to a pending federal court case, where a judge is anticipated to rule on or before Oct. 12 whether or not employers may deny requests for religious exemptions from getting the shot.
But nursing homes could be on track to lose more staffers within the coming week tied to a pending federal court case, where a judge is anticipated to rule on or before Oct. 12 whether or not employers may deny requests for religious exemptions from getting the shot.
Hochul has said she is confident the mandate will be upheld in court.
The DOH confirmed to The Post Wednesday that just 2,934 workers — or 2.1 percent of 140,917 total employees statewide — have “claimed another exemption, which is the subject of pending litigation” — a nod to the total number of religious exemptions submitted.
Another 674 statewide — 0.5 percent of staffers — have been granted medical exemptions.
For hospitals, 7,019 employees — 1.4 percent of around 521,000 employees statewide — have claimed “another exemption,” and 2,607 workers — or .06 percent — have been granted medical exemptions.
The DOH confirmed to The Post that 2,934 workers have “claimed another exemption, which is the subject of pending litigation” — a nod to the total number of religious exemptions submitted.
Another 674 statewide have been granted medical exemptions.
There are 613 nursing homes in New York and roughly 145,408 employees, according to the DOH on Sept. 23 — but it is unclear how many workers have been fired or resigned because they refused to get vaccinated.
“They talked about calling up the national guard and importing nurses from out of state and out of country and now when the facilities say ‘we are ready to use those people,’ the state says, ‘we don’t have any,’” said Bill Hammond, the Empire Center’s senior fellow for health policy.
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One nursing home industry source told The Post: “We’ve told [nursing homes] we’re not confident that staff would actually be available because our past history throughout the pandemic has been just that.”
“The state’s volunteer corps or hotline has not been able to provide help to long term care providers…You are more likely to get a survey team sent to your facility rather than new staff,” said the source, noting the DOH would probably send a group of agency inspectors to assess current staffing and safety protocols,” the source added.
Since the pandemic’s start in March 2020, over 15,000 nursing home residents have died from the virus.
Disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration refused to release data pertaining to the true number of deaths tied to the virus for months, until a state judge forced the DOH to release statistics.
Cuomo’s former top aide then admitted they “froze” and were worried about retribution from the Trump administration if they released the data.
The FBI and Eastern District of New York launched an investigation into the matter shortly after and are apparently still probing the issue.
The DOH did not return an immediate request for comment by The Post.
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