BUFFALO, N.Y. — Patients at the Batavia VA are already dealing with the challenges of staffing shortages.
John McCune says he has trouble finding just the two nurses he needs to get out of bed.
"We had to wait until they could potentially find someone to come down to our unit," McCune said.
And now they're worried it will get worse. Unvaccinated health care workers at the Batavia and Buffalo VA's have started to receive letters, saying they need to get vaccinated or they'll be reassigned or terminated.
"I'm scared, very scared, for myself and my fellow veterans on what it's going to look like," McCune said.
When cases were skyrocketing last summer, President Joe Biden announced federal workers must get the COVID vaccine. If they didn't have an approved, reasonable accommodation, they would lose their job.
A VA spokesperson says the goal of the mandate is to increase vaccinations so patients and employees are safer.
Western New York's VA notified employees of this in July, but they are just now starting to go through the process.
A spokesperson says the Western New York VA needed time to process all the medical or religious exemptions and that was temporarily put on pause until February because of a lawsuit that was eventually thrown out.
That spokesperson also says within WNY, 179 unvaccinated workers have filed a request for those reasonable accommodations.
That's a little over 5 percent of the workforce here and some of them are worried what could come next if they end up losing their job.
"If this goes through and staff don't comply and they are fired, it could potentially put our veterans at risk due to critical nursing shortages," said a health care worker who works in the WNY VA, who would like to remain anonymous out of fear they would be fired on the spot.
They say workers within the VA already need to wear PPE and test 1-2 times a week depending on their facility.
They add it's not exactly easy to find a replacement with staffing shortages everywhere and because of what the job requires.
"It's just very difficult," the health care worker said. "It does take time to learn how to interact effectively with veterans who may be standoffish, need that one-on-one care. It takes time to be an effective VA employees from all aspects all the way from EMS up through nursing and providers."
2 On Your Side asked how the Western New York VA will handle any potential, additional staffing shortages.
This was their response:
"Similar to regional community provider organizations that have already gone thru the New York state level COVID vaccination requirement, VA WNYHS will identify individualized plans for departments to enable continuation of clinical care delivery."
National Nurses United (NNU) is also the union for the Buffalo VA. The NNU filed a cease and desist letter on April 4 over the VA resuming the vaccine mandate process at the facility as well as at other VA Medical Centers around the states.
A spokesperson at the WNY VA says, "Guidance provided to date from VA Central Office to individual medical centers is they are not to cease implementation of Reasonable Accommodation requests to the employee vaccine requirement and that negotiations post implementation will occur at a national level."