UCHealth fires more than 100 workers who didn't get the COVID-19 vaccine

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AURORA, Colo. — Nearly two months ago, a group of nurses, health care workers, and supporters gathered outside the UCHealth Anschutz Medical Campus to protests against COVID-19 vaccine mandates at the health care network.

Now, some of them are likely out of a job.

Dan Weaver, a spokesperson for UCHealth, confirmed to Rocky Mountain PBS that 119 UCHealth employees—less than 0.5% of their statewide workforce—did not get vaccinated or receive a proper exemption before the October 1 deadline. Those 119 people were dismissed.

“Despite the loss of these employees, UCHealth’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement has helped to improve staffing,” Weaver said in an email. “With broad vaccination rates, fewer employees are testing positive for COVID-19 and needing to be out of work while they recover.”

A plurality of the terminated employees, 54 of them, worked in the Denver metro area, Weaver said. Thirty-three were based in northern Colorado and 32 were in southern Colorado.

According to a report from USA Today, people fired for not complying with COVID-19 vaccine mandates are unlikely to qualify for unemployment benefits. Weaver said the fired UCHealth employees are encouraged to reapply for their jobs if they decide to get the vaccine.

“No hospital wants to lose valued employees, but we know vaccines save lives and increase safety for everyone,” Weaver wrote. “We appreciate our staff members and providers who have chosen to be vaccinated to protect their family members, coworkers and our patients.”

Many of the protesters at the August demonstration emphasized to Rocky Mountain PBS that they were not necessarily against vaccinations—it was the mandate they opposed. But UCHealth is far from the only employer requiring vaccines in Colorado. Other major health care networks such as Banner Health and Denver Health are mandating vaccinations for employees.

And that was before state leaders, urged by Governor Jared Polis, announced rules requiring employees at some 3,600 health care facilities to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

[Related: Colorado health care workers must get COVID-19 vaccine, state Board of Health rules]

The health care industry isn’t alone with these mandates. For example, airlines, most colleges in Colorado and the U.S. military have all required COVID-19 vaccinations.

At the end of September, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock announced that 98% of city employees complied with Denver’s vaccine mandate.

When that mandate was introduced, Bob McDonald, the executive director of Denver Department of Public Health and Environment (DDPHE), said mandatory vaccinations were “the only way out” of the pandemic.

But as Rae Ellen Bichell reported for Kaiser Health News, the transmissibility of the Delta variant of COVID-19 makes herd immunity challenging, if not impossible, even in highly vaccinated areas. Colorado’s San Juan County, for example, has a 99.9% vaccination rate, one of the best in the nation. But people are still vulnerable to COVID-19 there.

“Even in the best-case scenario — if vaccines reduce transmission by 80% — you’re actually twice as likely to get COVID now than you were in July,” Julia Raifman, a Boston University School of Public Health epidemiologist. “It’s impossible statistically to achieve herd immunity with the Delta variant.”

Kyle Cooke is the Digital Media Manager at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach him at kylecooke@rmpbs.org.

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