Workers at Jewish
Senior Services in Bridgeport are required to get the COVID-19 vaccine by May, or they
may lose their job.
About 400 staff
members at Jewish Senior Services in Bridgeport rolled up their sleeves to get
their first dose of the vaccine in December.
Over a dozen of residents at the facility lost
their lives to COVID-19 throughout the year.
Andrew
Banoff, the president and CEO, says this is
about protecting everyone as the virus got into their facility primarily
through caregivers.
"We can't let staff members be the reason
that anybody else gets sick," he says.
Banoff typed a letter to about 150 employees who
did not receive the vaccine, saying
effective May 1, all direct and indirect caregiver staff will be required to
have the COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment, with medical exceptions
listed by the CDC.
Jewish Senior Services say they understand if
one of their employees decides not to get the vaccine because that's their
choice, but decision could impact their employment.
"Maybe it's the right decision to not be
vaccinated, but then it's also the right decision for them to work somewhere
else," Banoff says.
Although the federal government does not require
people to get the vaccine, according to the CDC, a state or local government or
employer may require, or mandate workers be vaccinated as a matter of state or
other law.
Banoff says, "The last thing on earth
we ever want to do is terminate anyone ever...whether for this reason or any
other reason."
Facility resident Elaine Mileski, 87, says
employees should have the right to decide if they get the vaccine.
"I think it should be their choice, but I
would feel better if they were," she says.
Banoff is just hoping the employees on the fence
about getting it will think of the residents they are caring for.
"We've all learned in the last year how
fragile life is and that we need to do everything we can to protect it,"
he says.
Almost all the
residents are vaccinated. Jewish Senior Services is working with St. Vincent's Medical
Center to get more employees vaccinated at a clinic during the weeks of March 8
and 15.