Dozens of employees terminated at Parkview Medical Center over vaccine mandate

PUEBLO, Colo. (KRDO) -- More than fifty employees at Parkview Medical Center were let go from the Pueblo hospital on Monday for not abiding by the state's COVID-19 vaccine requirements for health care workers.

A state emergency rule from the state's Board of Health mandates all Colorado healthcare workers be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 by October 31.

According to a spokesperson for Parkview Medical Center, the hospital terminated the contracts of 56 employees due to their unwillingness to abide by the vaccine requirements. There are approximately 3,000 employees currently employed at Parkview.

The hospital says the situation could've been a lot worse. Around one hundred employees received either religious or medical exemptions from receiving the COVID vaccine. The hospital also held a last-day vaccine clinic on Saturday, it's unclear how many employees received the vaccine at the clinic.

The spokesperson says unvaccinated employees were informed throughout the process that they would be terminated on November 1st if they continued to hold out.

Centura Health says they haven't fired anyone just yet. However, the health care provider says they have placed dozens of employees on unpaid administrative leave for not getting fully vaccinated.

Centura Health is fully compliant with the Colorado Board of Health’s COVID-19 vaccine ruling for health care facilities. In our workforce across Colorado and western Kansas, 99.7% of our caregivers have received their COVID-19 vaccine or a medical or religious exemption. We want to thank our 21,000 incredible people – individually and collectively – for stepping up to this latest challenge and doing everything within their power to tackle this global pandemic. We have 68 individuals who were placed on unpaid administrative leave today and we are actively working with them to take action to avoid loss of employment as a result of the state’s vaccine mandate. Centura, as a connected ecosystem of 17 hospitals and more than 250 physician clinics, has been preparing for potential service and program impacts from the mandate, but we can confidently say that we have all the resources available today to ensure our patients, neighbors, and communities see no disruptions in their care from this mandate.

Centura Health Spokesperson

KRDO also reached out to both Children's Hospital Colorado to see if they are abiding by the State Board of Health's emergency mandate and have fired unvaccinated employees. We are still waiting on a formal response.