HFMA President and CEO Joe Fifer interviews Sergio Melgar, CFO at UMass Memorial Health, about his history with health systems in peril and what he thinks could come out of pandemic-era changes.

WORCESTER, Mass.  - Healthcare providers are putting out the reminder for people to get their flu shots.

With strict COVID-19 restrictions such as mask wearing and social distancing in place last year the amount of flu last season was less than normal. Doctors are concerned with the easing of these restrictions, flu and other respiratory illnesses will return to pre-pandemic levels.

Massachusetts hospitals are bracing to lose hundreds of employees as deadlines for employees to get a Covid vaccine mandates approach. 

While vaccination rates at Massachusetts hospitals are high, thousands of workers have yet to meet the criteria ahead of deadlines, which range from Oct. 1 at some hospitals to Nov. 1 at others. Those who haven't confirmed they are vaccinated could face termination.

WORCESTER — The head of the largest healthcare system in Central Massachusetts says the hospital bed shortage and staffing crisis at UMass Memorial Healthcare have reached a tipping point.

As 25 Investigates’ Kerry Kavanaugh learned, plans are in the works to add more beds at the Worcester hospital, but requiring workers to get the COVID vaccine as a condition for employment could translate into fewer staff to care for patients.

On Thursday’s Boston Public Radio, Dr. Eric Dickson described the current situation at UMass Memorial Health as “the perfect storm,” after its hospital system ran out of ICU beds on Wednesday — 18 months after the COVID-19 pandemic officially began.

Dickson is the President and CEO of UMass Memorial Health, which has hospitals in Worcester, Southbridge, Marlborough and Leominster.

The nurses’ strike at Saint Vincent Hospital reached 200 days on Thursday. It’s the latest milestone of a work stoppage that officially began on March 8 with nurses bundled up in frigid temperatures. Summer has come and gone and the work stoppage has become the longest nurses’ strike in the history of the state.

The grievances go back to 2020, though, and have evolved since.

FRAMINGHAM — Upon dropping her daughter off Tuesday morning at McCarthy Elementary School, Maureen Ferdinand reminded the 7-year-old girl, Clara, to pull her mask up.

Like many parents of young children, Ferdinand is eagerly waiting for the COVID-19 vaccine to become available to those younger than 12. She said she trusts what the schools are doing, but "they're kids and I have to tell her to pull her mask up over her nose every two minutes."

WORCESTER — In a letter to their striking colleagues on Wednesday, doctors at St. Vincent Hospital are imploring nurses to return to work to help patients amid a COVID-19 surge.

The nurses' strike, the longest such strike in state history, reached 199 days on Wednesday.

WORCESTER, Mass. — Almost six months after becoming eligible to get it, Sarah Thorstenson was finally convinced to get the COVID-19 vaccine by her own eyes.

“Absolutely, if you would see these people -- if the people at home could see what’s going on in here -- there would be no doubt you would go an get the vaccine don’t wait until it’s too late,” Thorstenson said.