Can Long-Term Care Employers Require Staff Members to Be Vaccinated?
As legal experts and ethicists debate, some companies aren’t waiting.
Joe Pendergast, a resident of Juniper Village, a nursing home in Bensalem, Pa., with Kevin Birtwell, a wellness nurse manager there. All staff members at Juniper are required to be vaccinated.Credit...Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York Times
Published March 5, 2021Updated March 8, 2021
For much of the winter, Meryl Gordon worried about the people caring for her 95-year-old mother, who was rehabbing in a Manhattan nursing home after surgery for a broken hip.
“Every week they sent out a note to families about how many staff members had positive Covid tests,” said Ms. Gordon, a biographer and professor at New York University. “It was a source of tremendous anxiety.”