CentraCare Has Lost a Significant Amount of Employees Due to COVID

CentraCare has more than 1,300 openings.  CentraCare Spokesman Dr. George Morris says they have lost a significant amount of employees over the last year plus due to COVID.  Morris says this started in January because COVID has "been so hard, the hours have been long and the challenges have been immense."  He says COVID has taken a toll on their staff.

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Morris says many travel nurses/therapists have left them in larger numbers starting this summer with those numbers growing this fall.  He says people are choosing to work at a different facility or chose to leave the healthcare industry as a whole.  Morris says they have conducted numerous job fairs and these have been successful in filling some of their positions but by no means are they full.  He says the open positions vary from doctors and nurses to support staff.  Some positions would require experience, certain level of education and certificates.  Some positions are considered entry level where CentraCare would train those individuals.

Dr. Morris did not give exact numbers of how many employees have left and this includes how many may have chosen to leave CentraCare due to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate which was announced in August.  Morris says they have been vaccinating more employees in the past week and are now at 72% of staff fully vaccinated.

My conversation with Dr. Morris is available below.