The battle between staff members at Houston Methodist who refused to follow the mandate to get vaccinated and their employer is still blazing. More than 100 employees quit or were fired for refusing to get vaccinated, and the lines have been drawn as protestors support the healthcare workers’ right to dissent.

Recently, a judge sided with hospital system’s right to terminate the employment of non-vaccinated employees, according to Yahoo News. Houston Methodist consists of an academic medical center and six community hospitals and was the first large, integrated health system to implement a vaccine mandate for employees. The fired employees say they are not giving up the fight.

“We’re going to most likely go all the way up to the Supreme Court,” said Jennifer Bridges, a registered nurse and the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit filed by 117 employees of Houston Methodist after losing the ruling.

“We must lead by example and get vaccinated ourselves,” stated Marc Boom, CEO of the healthcare system. Most of the 26,000 employees got vaccinated by the June 7 deadline, but Bridges, who worked in the hospital’s coronavirus unit, was one of the workers who refused, according to The Washington Post. Bridges said that while she has willingly received “every vaccine known to man,” she does not trust the COVID-19 vaccines.

The nurse was one of the 153 employees who were fired or resigned from Houston Methodist June 28 after refusing to comply with hospital’s vaccine mandate.

“I’m not anti-vax,” she said, according to Yahoo News. “I’ve had all my other vaccines, but this one was rushed, and it didn’t have the proper research. I would rather take my chances than get the shot.”

Many hospital workers nationwide remain unvaccinated despite the fact they were first in line to be eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations. In a recent USA Today survey, some hospitals reported that only half their staff that includes doctors and nurses, along with support workers, are fully vaccinated.

At Houston Methodist, 47-year-old Bob Nevens was also fired for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. He had served as director of corporate risk for a decade and balked when his hospital system mandated vaccines for all management and staff.

Nevens said he was concerned that the vaccines were developed too rapidly and that the Food and Drug Administration gave only emergency use authorization for the drugs and not full approval. He was also worried about the unknown long-term side effects of the vaccines.

“I don’t want to take an experimental vaccine,” he told USA Today. “We don’t know what it’s going to do to somebody 10 years from now.” Nevens also said that he believes he already contracted COVID-19 while on a hiking trip and is therefore immune to the disease.

Bridges claims she has seen disturbing side effects from COVID-19 vaccines.

“I’ve seen everything from blood clots, heart attacks, heart arrhythmias,” she said, according told USA Today.  “We’ve had people who were perfectly healthy and the day after they took the vaccine, they literally woke up and they couldn’t move or feel their legs.”

Freenea Stewart is another former employee who was let go for defying Houston Methodist’s vaccine policy.

‘This isn’t about my job,” she told Yahoo News. “This is about saying we have to get this vaccine,” she said, adding that she was fired despite having contracted COVID-19 earlier this year.

“I want my body to use its immune system to work,” Stewart said. “That’s the best antibody to give. There is not enough information about the vaccine yet. My body has no idea what’s in that shot.”

She added that she believes that individuals have a right to make these decisions themselves.

“In the United States we have freedom of choice,” she said. “That is what makes the United States so amazing.”

Dr. Kavita Patel, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert in health care reform, says she understands the reluctance of some healthcare workers to get vaccinated but challenges their right to subject their patients to the possible risks of COVID-19.

“Health professionals are humans too,” she told Yahoo News. “This is a reflection of what people in American think — that the trials were not enough, and they don’t want to be experiments. Having said that, I think health professionals have an incredible responsibility to their patients, and ignoring the large body of clinical trial data, as well as real-world evidence, is the height of selfish irresponsibility.”