Maternity ward functions suspended in upstate New York hospital after workers resign due to vaccine mandate

Lewis County General Hospital has announced that, as of Sept. 24 2021, deliveries will be placed on hold due to staff resigning after the new vaccine mandate went into effect.

The hospital, located in Lowville, east of Syracuse and near the Canadian border, has just seen six resignations handed in from people who were working in its maternity ward, and allegedly seven other workers are thinking of doing the same at the time of this writing.

According to the Watertown Daily Times, Gerald Cayer, the CEO of the Lewis County Health System, a total of 30 workers have resigned from the hospital since the vaccine mandate came into effect on Aug. 23 2021. Twenty of those resignations were from workers with clinical roles, such as nurses and technicians.

"We are unable to safely staff the service after Sept. 24. The number of resignations received leaves us no choice but to pause delivering babies at Lewis County General Hospital."

"It is my hope that the [New York State] Department of Health will work with us in pausing the service rather than closing the maternity department."

There are a total of 619 workers at the hospital at this time, of which 165 are not yet fully vaccinated.

"It just is a crazy time. It’s not just LCHS [Lewis County Hospital System]-centric. Rural hospitals everywhere are really trying to figure out how we’re going to make it work."

Cayer also mentioned that he is hopeful that replacements can be found for the people who have resigned, which will allow them to re-instate maternity services at the hospital:

"If we can pause the service and now focus on recruiting nurses who are vaccinated, we will be able to reengage in delivering babies here in Lewis County,"

Vaccine mandates are a hot-button issue all across the country, with the federal government pushing for more and more draconian measures to be taken in order to get the number of vaccinated people up.