LYNCHBURG, Va. – Thirty-six fewer people now work at Centra.
The health system announced on Thursday that due to its COVID-19 vaccine requirement, it lost 0.52% of its workforce.
Back on August 16, Centra announced that by November 1, all 7,600 of its employees would need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Those not vaccinated by that date would be placed on a two-week suspension and after that, those still not in compliance would be terminated.
In Thursday’s announcement, Centra provided a timeline of its process when it came to making these personnel decisions:
- On November 2, 134 employees (1.9% of Centra staff) were not fully vaccinated.
- Of that group, 79 people were non-compliant, while 55 were partially vaccinated.
- On November 16, 34 employees remained pending in compliance and from that group five people were fired
- In addition to those individuals, 31 others resigned, bringing the total number to 36 departures.
“Our patients and Caregivers expect to be safe when they enter one of our facilities, and we need to do everything we can to protect them, “said Centra Senior Vice President Michael Elliott. “We know the vaccine is the single most important step we can take to protect ourselves and each other from COVID-19.”
With those 36 individuals no longer employed by Centra, the health system reports that all of its employees are in compliance.
Moving forward, being vaccinated for COVID-19 is Centra policy, thus, all new hires will have received one of the three vaccines.