99% of ThedaCare employees chose to be vaccinated rather than quit their jobs over the mandate – Post-Crescent

About 70 ThedaCare employees quit rather than receive the COVID-19 vaccine as the health system had mandated by the end of November.

ThedaCare employs nearly 7,000 people, a spokesperson said Friday, meaning about 99% of their workforce chose to receive the vaccine.

In a statement to the Post Crescent, chief human resources officer Maggie Lund said 29 employees were let go Nov. 26 after failing to get vaccinated against COVID-19. ThedaCare had announced in September that all employees would need the shot to comply with President Joe Biden's requirement that hospitals receiving Medicare and Medicaid funds mandate the vaccine.

Lund estimated that an additional 30 to 40 employees left in the weeks prior to the deadline to avoid getting vaccinated, bringing the total to approximately 70 employees who left because of the mandate.

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Short-staffed hospitals are a well-known reality in Wisconsin as COVID-19 cases continue to surge, and Republican lawmakers have repeatedly blamed the vaccine mandates.

In an interview Wednesday with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said a "sizable amount" of the problems "are being prodded by the decisions people are making."

"Vaccine mandate means you have less staff, right?" the Rochester Republican said. "That might be a bad decision that hospitals are making."

A spokesperson for the Wisconsin Hospital Association said in a statement that pandemic stress has driven far more health care workers outthan vaccine requirements.Morning Consult, a survey company, found in an October report that nearly one in five U.S. health care workers have quit the professionsince February 2020, citing burnout, poor pay, and most often, the pandemic itself.

The hospital association said its members reported losing fewer than 2% of their employees due to vaccine mandates. The state's largest health system, Advocate Aurora Health which has hospitals in the Fox Valley lost less than 1% of staff to the mandate.

A spokesperson for Ascension Wisconsin, which also has several Fox Valley locations, declined to share a specific number of employees who were let go because of the mandate but said Friday most had chosen to be vaccinated.

"We want patients to be assured and comforted with the knowledge that Ascension Wisconsin doctors and nurses, other clinicians and associates, working in one of our hospitals or other sites of care, will either be vaccinated against both COVID-19 and influenza, or in the limited instances of exemptions, be complying with additional infection prevention protocols," a statement from the health system said.

No matter the cause, staffing shortages are stretching the region's hospitals thin as the COVID-19 patient census continues to grow. There were 136 patients hospitalized with the virus in the Fox Valley Friday afternoon, according to data from the hospital association.

On a Friday call with community leaders, ThedaCare officials asked that if those listening knew nurses or other health care professionals looking for work, they encourage them to inquire at ThedaCare.

Contact reporter Madeline Heim at 920-996-7266 or mheim@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @madeline_heim.

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99% of ThedaCare employees chose to be vaccinated rather than quit their jobs over the mandate - Post-Crescent