Upstate University Hospital to shutter ORs, blaming NY vaccine mandate for staff shortage
Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse will temporarily close 22 of its 35 operating rooms starting Monday in anticipation of a growing staff shortage due to New York’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate.
The hospital had already postponed elective surgeries as a result of chronic staff shortages during the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, priority will be given to surgeries that are medically necessary, time sensitive or involve critical-care trauma cases, the hospital announced Friday. Those surgeries will be consolidated into the 13 open operating rooms.
Earlier in the day, the hospital warned employees who cannot prove that they’ve been vaccinated against Covid-19 by 5 p.m. Monday will not be allowed to work Tuesday.
According to Johns Hopkins:
An elective surgery does not always mean it is optional. It simply means that the surgery can be scheduled in advance. It may be a surgery you choose to have for a better quality of life, but not for a life-threatening condition. But in some cases it may be for a serious condition such as cancer. Examples of elective surgery include removing a mole or wart, and having kidney stones removed. It may also be done if other forms of treatment are not working.
You might really need that joint replacement or cardiac stent or pacemaker but it’s far more important that your OR nurse has her COVID shot.
The miniscule risk that a nurse with asymptomatic COVID under OR sterility protocols gives you COVID and you die from it is considerably more important than whatever your doctor thought you needed surgery for.
You are being denied surgery for your health.
More precisely, you’re being denied surgery to satisfy a wannabe dictator’s delusions.
Funny thing… after all that worry about asymptomatic carriers early on, we now have mass distribution of a leaky vaccine that (aside from creating evolutionary pressure for the virus) seems likely to make asymptomatic carriers an actual thing.
There was a mass shooting in Memphis on Friday. I was watching the local news coverage of it and they had a reporter outside one of the hospitals. She said that 9 of the 11 victims had come there.
When she was done with the report, one of the anchors said something along the lines of “some of you may be asking the same question we are right now…last night we reported that this hospital was completely full because of the Covid surge. We don’t know right now how they were able to take this huge influx of gunshot patients today but we’re certainly glad they were.”
It’s almost as if “the hospitals are full” is complete BS…
Hey on a separate note, does anyone remember all the stories about how in the summer of 2020 all these hospitals were setting up extra beds in trailers and parking garages to handle the surge? There are, on paper at least, almost twice as many covid patients now as there were then, but…..no overflow beds in parking garages. What happened with that?
Government running healthcare and making care devisions and policy is good for you! /sarc
Thank you for hitting the definition mismatch for “elective surgery” that nobody else is talking about.
In medicine, there are two kinds of surgeries: emergency and elective. Basically, if it’s not an “emergency” — which as you might imagine means “it needs to be done right now!” — then it’s “elective”.
That doesn’t automatically make the surgery unnecessary or optional, just non-emergent.
In the common parlance (i.e. outside the practice of medicine), “elective” means optional; you can choose whether or not to have it, with few-if-any negative consequences. Having that second latte or not is elective.
In medicine, however, “elective” is more about choosing when to have a procedure, not whether to have it. Removing cancerous tumors, scheduled C-sections, organ transplants, coronary bypasses, skin grafts, etc., are all medically necessary, but still classified as “elective” because they’re scheduled ahead of time.
However, the media — as usual — either doesn’t realize that “elective” has a specific meaning in medicine that’s different from common use … or they know but also realize that Fear Pr0n generates clicks.
Because “ZOMGCOVIDGONNAKILLUSALL!!1!1!!” sells way better than facts.
Isn’t Florida a free state, NOT requiring “vaccination”?
Anybody (a) KNOW, and/or (b) know of other free states?
Asking for a potentially soon unemployed PA….
Your biggest issue is the Executive Order about requiring all your employees to be vaccinated (no testing option allowed) if you take Medicare.
It won’t matter if you move to a “free” state if no one will employ you anyway.
That depends. If the state governor has adequate balls (or XX equivalent), he’d ignore that EO as unconstitutional and therefore (per Marbury) “not law”. Then see if the feds try to sue. If yes, insist on taking it straight to SCOTUS since they have original jurisdiction over cases where a state is a party.
The governor, any governor, is not going to be able to force the federal government to issue payments for Medicare reimbursement to medical providers that don’t play ball.
Texas.