Tidelands Health terminates employee for not getting vaccinated against COVID-19
Tidelands Health has terminated one of its employees for not getting vaccinated against COVID-19 as required by the hospital system, a spokesperson confirmed to The Sun News.
Tidelands employees are required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, the hospital system announced in July. The deadline to get the vaccine was Tuesday. One person, who was employed on an as-needed basis without a set schedule, refused to comply with the policy and get vaccinated by the deadline, and they were fired from the hospital system as a result.
In Horry County, about 46% of the total population has been fully vaccinated, according to data kept by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More than 2,000 of the hospital system’s employees complied with the policy, meaning they got the shot, or were exempt because they had a previous infection or medical or religious reasons, according to spokesperson Dawn Bryant. The hospital system was the first in the Myrtle Beach area to require a coronavirus vaccination, and second in the state following the Medical University of South Carolina, an affiliate of Tidelands.
“It is our responsibility to our patients and to each other to move to a fully vaccinated workforce,” chief operating officer Gayle Resetar said when the policy was announced in July. “As we have throughout the pandemic, we remain resolute in our commitment to do what is right and needed to protect our community from this dangerous, highly transmissible virus.”
COVID-19 vaccine requirements are becoming more common across the country as a new surge of cases and hospitalizations fueled largely by the younger, unvaccinated population has overwhelmed health systems. Tidelands itself has operated at more than 100% capacity during the most recent surge of the pandemic.
This story was originally published September 8, 2021 at 3:21 PM.
