Would You Take Your Job Back?
Covid-19 vaccine mandates no longer exist for Duke Health employees.
I was an employee for Duke University Health System in the Pharmacy Department for 21 years; I was fired in October 2021 for refusing to get the mandated experimental covid-19 vaccine. Duke employees that refused the experimental vaccine either resigned, retired, requested a religious/medical exemption or were terminated.
As of September 11, 2023 Duke Health no longer requires the covid-19 vaccine for healthcare workers.
We have experienced a steady decline in the number of cases and severity of illness since the beginning of the year. This decline is attributable to two key factors: our community has about 95 percent immunity (through vaccination or previous infection) and weaker variants of the virus evolved that cause less severe illness. As a result, we no longer need to take some of the public health measures required earlier in the pandemic.
The following email was sent to Duke Health employees with approved covid-19 vaccine exemptions:
The vaccine mandate ended earlier on May 11, 2023, for Duke University students, faculty and staff. On May 31, 2023, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) eliminated the experimental covid-19 vaccine requirement for healthcare workers.
It’s no secret the experimental coronavirus vaccine failed to prevent infection or stop transmission of SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes covid-19. The vaccine continues to be an experiment from development through the post-marketing surveillance period. Millions of businesses and organizations across the nation mandated their employees to participate in this medical experiment. When vaccine mandates were announced in 2021 no one knew if the vaccine would stop infections or transmission, including the pharmaceutical companies that created them. All those who complied and rolled up their sleeves became part of the experiment, unknowingly a pawn for Pfizer, Moderna and Jansen.
Now that the truth and scientific evidence are showing that these vaccines are not effective, the mandates are ending. UNC Health dropped their mandate on September 5th 2023. Other major healthcare systems in NC that no longer require the covid-19 vaccine for employment are Atrium Health, Wake Forest Baptist and Cone Health.
So, what happens now to all the people who were fired from their jobs, kicked out schools or lost other opportunities for refusing the vaccine? Will they be reinstated and/or compensated for their time lost? There are reports of some healthcare systems asking to rehire unvaccinated workers who were fired but Duke is not one of them. In fact, a clause in Duke’s covid-19 vaccination guidance to mangers states they will not rehire terminated non-compliant team members.
If a team member is terminated because of non-compliance, would they be eligible for rehire? Team members terminated for non-compliance would not be eligible for rehire with Duke in the future.
Since it was always unknown if the experimental vaccine would work or if previous infection provided immunity, why didn’t employers offer employees who refused the vaccine a temporary leave of absence, work remotely option, furlough or another type of deferment instead of firing talented employees to only try and rehire them? It is apparent that Duke Health would rather fire long-time employees, who are experts in the field, than make negotiations to keep them employed until the pandemic was over, it was proven that previous infection provided immunity or until there was a fully FDA approved safe and effective vaccine. Discarding employees that do not want to take part in a medical experiment is an unconscionable way to treat employees and to manage a business.
The vaccine mandates left many healthcare facilities short-handed which directly affected patient care. In fact in 2021 the majority of Duke Health employees were vaccinated with the experimental vaccine, yet they were still getting infected with SARS-CoV2. The same phenomena happened to Duke University students and faculty. Duke’s solution was to continue to require employees to get vaccinated with an experimental vaccine that was not preventing infection or transmission and has since been shown to increase the chance of becoming infected. Is a vaccine considered effective when unvaccinated Duke employees were being called in multiple times to cover shifts for vaccinated coworkers that became infected with covid? In the video below you will hear a Duke expert state that 60% of the Duke employees that were infected with covid-19 Delta variant over a 2-week period were vaccinated. More importantly she states that vaccinated people can still transmit the virus. This was after Duke mandated the vaccines on July 20, 2021, with the Delta variant being one of the key reasons for doing so. Duke did not recognize immunity from previous covid-19 infection in place of vaccination.
Perhaps these negative vaccine efficacy results played a part in ending the vaccine mandates. However, the reason Duke claims they have withdrawn their vaccine mandate uses the same language coming from CMS in their final rule on the elimination of the vaccination requirement for healthcare workers. You will notice that both Duke and CMS now consider immunity from pervious infection as reason not to get vaccinated. CMS stated the following in their regulatory change document,
Based on an evaluation of the evolving clinical and epidemiological circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, increased vaccine uptake, declining infection and death rates, decreasing severity of disease, increased instances of infection-induced immunity, public comments submitted to CMS, and the addition of COVID-19 vaccination quality measures to quality improvement and reporting programs, we believe regulations regarding COVID-19 vaccination of health care staff are no longer necessary. Therefore, in this rule, we are withdrawing language on COVID-19 health care staff vaccination requirements issued in the staff vaccination IFC. COVID-19 vaccination policies and procedures for health care staff will no longer be required under the CoPs, CfCs, and requirements.
The decision for those terminated employees who have been offered their jobs back is, would you go back to a place that mandated an experimental vaccine and then fired you for refusing?
My answer would be no.
If employers did this once they could do it again. We all witnessed that under a state of emergency policies, laws and the constitution can be suspended and abused. Not enough people resisted the tyranny of forced and coerced medical experiments. People blindly, silently and obediently went along with vaccine and other covid-19 mandates. Imagine if the majority of people refused. What is the purpose of mandating a vaccine other than stopping a virus from spreading? Ask yourself, if the vaccinated and the vaccine exempt can get infected and spread covid, why didn’t they lose their jobs?
Jacquie - fellow North Carolinian standing in similar shoes. God's will be done.