Albany Medical Center officials say that 98% of its staff is vaccinated against COVID-19, but that still leaves about 200 employees who have not signed off on receiving the shot yet. That's out of more than 11,000 total workers, including non-medical personnel.

Albany Med President and CEO Dr. Dennis McKenna said Tuesday that a little more than 200 employees could receive a notice of a seven-day unpaid suspension Friday due to being unvaccinated. If they do not receive a dose of the vaccine in the next seven days, they will lose their jobs.

McKenna said that's why it's still hard to know exactly what the impact will be to hospital operations. 

Gov. Kathy Hochul has mandated that New York health care workers must have at least one dose of the vaccine by Monday to continue working. It prompted a host of lawsuits, and some health care facilities have been preparing for staffing shortages.

 At Albany Med, 12 medical exemptions were granted and 29 are pending.

McKenna also touched on the subject of recruiting. He said it was important to bolster the hospital's ranks as it continues to assess how many jobs might need to be filled.

"One of the areas we were heavily focused on and continue to do so is recruitment and retention," McKenna said. "We have a broad multi-media campaign. We believe that we need to inspire new colleagues to join our mission."

Some of those recruitment methods include bonuses for any nurse who refers a new nurse to work at the hospital, and the increase in wages the hospital enacted this summer.