Patients Refuse Care From Unvaccinated
CMS emphasized the vaccine mandate is necessary in healthcare because unvaccinated staff not only pose a risk to admitted patients, but contribute to the general pandemic effect of people avoiding needed medical care.
Nationwide, there are reports of individuals avoiding or forgoing healthcare due to fears of contracting COVID-19 from healthcare workers, CMS stated. In addition, CMS cited anecdotal reports that admitted patients are refusing care from unvaccinated healthcare workers.
CMS has the broad backing of the medical community in mandating COVID-19 vaccines for healthcare workers, with more than 50 professional societies and associations supporting required immunizations in a joint statement.5 Signatories include the American Nurses Association and the American Medical Association.
Again, numerous health systems and individual healthcare employers across the country already have implemented SARS-CoV-2 vaccine mandates as a condition of employment.
Despite the successes of these organizations in increasing levels of staff vaccination, there remains an inconsistent patchwork of requirements and laws that is only effective at local levels and has not successfully raised staff vaccination rates nationwide, CMS stated in the rule.
CMS plans to issue interpretive guidelines for the healthcare vaccine requirements, which will include survey procedures. The facilities policies and procedures will be examined to ensure all components of the rule are in place.
The Inquiry Into Emergent And Its Troubled Maryland Vaccine Plant Is Expanded
Congressional investigators are expanding their inquiry of Emergent BioSolutions, the operator of a troubled Maryland vaccine-making plant, to encompass the firms relationship with the two companies that hired it to produce their shots.
In letters dated Tuesday, two House panels asked the companies, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, to document their efforts to supervise production of their vaccines at Emergents factory and to produce all records related to their decisions to hire Emergent as a subcontractor.
The plant, in southeastern Baltimore, has been forced to throw out the equivalent of 75 million doses of Johnson & Johnsons coronavirus vaccine because of suspected contamination. Deliveries of more than 100 million other doses of both vaccines have been delayed for weeks while regulators check them. The plant has been closed since mid-April while Emergent tries to meet the regulators demands to bring its manufacturing up to standard.
The congressional panels began a joint investigation of Emergents operations after The New York Times documented months of problems at the Baltimore plant, including a failure to properly disinfect equipment and to protect against viral and bacterial contamination. Among other matters, Democratic lawmakers are looking into whether the company leveraged its contacts with a top Trump administration official, Dr. Robert Kadlec, to win the business of vaccine production, and whether federal officials failed to oversee the firms work.
Vaccine Mandate Complicates Staffing
Hospital administrators worry that the states vaccine mandate for health care workers, which goes into effect Sept. 30, could drive some of their workers out. Already, some report resistance among employees.
One hospital told us they had 474 unvaccinated employees. They did a big education and incentive push. Only 12 people signed up, said Richardson, the hospital associations attorney.
Administrators are particularly concerned about low vaccination rates among support staff like janitors and food service workers. However, some nurses also are wary of the COVID-19 vaccine. Some nurses with large social media followings have participated in protests in Southern California, arguing that the mandates violate their personal freedom.
If they dont want to get vaccinated, they are turning down California assignments.
eric cole, scripps health
The vaccine order allows only for narrow religious and medical exemptions. Until Sept. 30, unvaccinated workers must undergo weekly COVID-19 testing. The state nursing association issued a statement saying all eligible people should be vaccinated.
While California was first in the nation to impose a vaccine mandate for health care workers, other states have since joined in, but their mandates arent as broad.
Cole of Scripps Health said the states testing requirement, imposed this week, already has discouraged some out-of-state, traveling nurses from taking temporary jobs at California hospitals.
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Read More About The Vaccine Rollout:
“If the government is serious about giving the best protection for aged care, then a mandatory policy would have to extend to everybody who enters an aged care facility, exactly the same as flu vaccinations,” he said.
He said that was supported by 85 per cent of survey respondents.
AMA WA president Andrew Miller said while it needed to be made mandatory for people working in aged care in time, “if you do it overnight you might create another crisis in your workforce”.
Louisiana Lagging In Vaccinations Gambles On A Lottery
Like many states in the South, Louisianas vaccination rate has lagged significantly behind the national average, particularly among older adults, a trend that has troubled public health officials.
Some 22 percent of adults 65 and older still have not been vaccinated, compared with 12 percent nationally, according to a New York Times database. Just 34 percent of the states population has been fully vaccinated, compared with 46 percent nationally.
Louisiana is one of the latest states to resort to dangling financial incentives to get more shots into arms, a strategy that has kindled a broader debate over the effectiveness and wisdom of monetary enticements. It is holding a lottery, which will be paid for with federal coronavirus relief funds.
At the lotterys unveiling last week, a jazz band played the state song, You Are My Sunshine, and Louisianas governor, John Bel Edwards, revealed a giant check for $1 million.
Mr. Edwards said amid the festivities that the money would go to a Louisiana adult who had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. He said that the state would give away a total of $2.3 million in cash prizes and scholarships over a month. Registration for the lottery marketed as Shot at a Million began this week.
Before launching our own program, we wanted to see how well it worked in other states, and, quite frankly, weve been impressed by the success that theyve had, Mr. Edwards said in announcing the lottery.
Correction:
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Nurses Union Receives ‘hate Mail’ Over Support For Vaccine Mandate
Mr Olsen said he continued to support the vaccine mandate, despite getting more “hate mail” over the topic in 23 years than over any other issue.
His response to critics was: “It’s not the policy that’s leaving the staff short.
“It’s the fact that we’ve got health professionals who should know better, who are ignoring the science and choosing not to get vaccinated.
“They’re the ones leaving their colleagues short.”
AMA WA president Dr Mark Duncan-Smith said the fact only a small number of staff had chosen not to get vaccinated was a positive sign.
“It should be reassuring to the general public that health care professionals overwhelmingly support vaccination and it should be a reason for the general public to go out and get vaccinated if they aren’t already,” he said.
“From a management point of view, if you’re running a tier 1 centre as such an emergency department or intensive care unit, the employer needs to provide a safe work environment and that means the staff need to be vaccinated.”
Some Hospitals Drop Worker Vaccine Mandates
Dec. 15, 2021 — Some of the largest hospital groups in the U.S. have dropped COVID-19 vaccine requirements for staff after a federal judge temporarily stopped the Biden administration mandate for health care workers.
AdventHealth, the Cleveland Clinic, HCA Healthcare, Intermountain Healthcare, and Tenet Healthcare said they canceled the requirements for now to help with labor shortages. Hospitals have struggled to retain enough nurses, technicians, and janitors to handle the latest surge of hospitalizations during the pandemic.
Burnout, labor costs, and vaccine mandates have played a role, The Wall Street Journal reported. Thousands of workers have left the industry or lost their jobs in recent months rather than get vaccinated.
âItâs been a mass exodus, and a lot of people in the health care industry are willing to go and shop around,â Wade Symons, an employee benefits lawyer and head of U.S. regulatory practice for consulting firm Mercer, told the newspaper.
âIf you get certain health care facilities that donât require it, those could be a magnet for those people who donât want the vaccine,â he said. âTheyâll probably have an easier time attracting labor.â
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‘it’s The First Time I’ve Ever Had The Sack’
Ms Visan said it could have a serious impact on patients already struggling to access NHS dental care.
“If there are no dentists, there are no people to treat the patient so the patients will remain without dentists. And nurses as well,” she said.
“There is already a crisis of NHS dentists and nurses. The lists taking new patients are closed and this will be even worse on 1 April.
“All the dentists who are not vaccinated will leave and all the patients who cannot find a dentist will be in an even worse situation. No-one will take you so you’ll just be in pain and have to deal with it.”
Mr Stevens, who has been a dentist for more than 50 years, said his contract would be discontinued.
“Simple as that – I’ll just not be expected to go in. It’s the first time I’ve ever had the sack. So it’s nice to have yet another experience in life, I guess,” he said.
“I feel that the NHS has gone way beyond its ethical standards. Quite remarkable. It’s very sad.”
The British Dental Association, which represents dentists, said mandatory vaccination of healthcare workers would have a “calamitous impact on dental services“.
In its guidance, the General Dental Council, which is the statutory regulator of the dental sector, said it would “encourage everyone who can be vaccinated to be vaccinated”.
In 4 Healthcare Workers Quitting Over Vaccine Mandates Will Leave The Profession
As more states, private employers, and large healthcare systems institute policies to encourage vaccinations, many reluctant employees are finally getting the shot in order to protect their jobs. However, a notable percentage of the population would prefer to lose their jobs rather than get what they view as a potentially dangerous injection.
This is a particularly murky problem when it comes to healthcare workers, who interact with some of the most vulnerable members of the population and also have such a specific set of job skills. We surveyed over 300 healthcare workers who have quit their jobs due to the vaccine mandates to find out how they planned to move forward in their careers.
We discovered that:
- 26% of these healthcare workers will choose to leave the field entirely
- Of those who plan to remain in healthcare, 79% say they are having a hard time finding a job that does not require them to get the vaccine
- 75% of those staying in healthcare have considered moving to find a job without a vaccine mandate, with nearly a third saying Florida would be their state of choice
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Todays 3 Key Reads About Covid
- 1. J& J Vaccine: The company quietly paused vaccine production despite a persistent need in much of the developing world.
- 2. Denmarks Approach: The Nordic country, with its high vaccination rates and trust in the authorities, has lifted all restrictions.
- 3. Canadas Trucker Protests: Demonstrations against vaccine mandates have turned into an occupation of Ottawa. Heres the latest.
The Supreme Court ruling covered two dozen states that had been the subject of federal injunctions that prohibited the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services from imposing a mandate. About 10 million workers at approximately 76,000 health care facilities, including hospitals and long-term care facilities, are affected by the requirement.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis called the new federal policy insane at a news conference on Thursday. The states Agency for Health Care Administration also indicated it would not survey health care facilities about compliance of the vaccine mandate. On Friday, Mr. DeSantis reiterated his position, posting on Twitter that Florida will reject federal mandates, which are rooted in political, not medical science.
Still, federal laws ordinarily displace, or pre-empt, contrary state and local ones, and in allowing the mandate for health care workers, the Supreme Court at least implicitly ruled that it overrode state laws banning vaccination requirements at facilities participating in the Medicaid and Medicare programs.
Risk Of Nurses Leaving Too High To Mandate Vaccine Says Ballad Health Ceo
- Medium
- Large
Many healthcare workers are vaccinated against COVID-19, but others are refusing to do so as part of their employers’ requirements. As a result, hospitals and health systems have lost employees, and one healthcare executive said a mandate could cost his 21-hospital system too many nurses.
“We have about 6,000 nurses in our system,” Alan Levine, executive chair, president and CEO of Johnson City, Tenn.-based Ballad Health, told NPR. “If we are five or 10 nurses down in our system, we feel it. … I have to keep as many nurses as I can who are capable of taking care of our community.”
Mr. Levine’s concerns about staff quitting because of vaccine requirements are substantiated Lewis County Health System, a single-hospital system in Lowville, N.Y., said it will temporarily close its maternity unit after staff resigned over the state mandate. In South Carolina, Tidelands Health fired one of its employees for not complying with the Georgetown-based system’s vaccine mandate. Among the most recent examples: After a two-week unpaid suspension period ending Sept. 14, 125 employees at IU Health left the Indianapolis-based organization after choosing not to receive the vaccine.
Hospitals have expressed concerns about what a mandate could mean for facilities already grappling with staffing strain.
Mr. Levine told NPR that he’s uncertain how the federal mandate will affect his hospitals, but he also is concerned about the effect on rural healthcare providers.
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Coronavirus Disruptions Have Worsened Famine Risk For Millions Uns Anti
Tens of millions of people in 43 countries could soon face famine, partly because of soaring food prices compounded by the coronavirus pandemic, the United Nations World Food Program said on Tuesday.
The potential famines are one example of how economic inequality worsens the pandemics devastation. The disparities between wealthy and developing countries have become more glaring as countries like the United States and Britain secured ample vaccine supplies while poorer countries in parts of Africa, Asia and South America struggled to get doses.
Many developing nations have long faced challenges to food security, like conflict and climate change. The pandemic complicated their problems by snarling supply chains and stalling agricultural production, driving up the cost of food.
Recent assessments indicate that 584,000 people in Ethiopia, Madagascar, South Sudan and Yemen are already suffering famine, the World Food Program said in a statement. Without urgent funding and humanitarian aid, the agency said, tens of millions more could soon join them.
Forty-one million people are literally knocking on famines door, David Beasley, the World Food Programs executive director, told a board meeting on Monday, the statement said.
Experts have long pointed to a pandemic of hunger alongside the coronavirus, a concern Mr. Beasley raised in remarks before the United Nations Security Council in April 2020.
We need funding, and we need it now, he said.
So Was The Effort Worth It
Boy, that’s the $50,000 question. It’s really, it’s hard to say, said Doug Farmer, the president and CEO of the Colorado Health Care Association, which represents more than 200 nursing homes and assisted living centers.
About 88.5 percent of assisted living and skilled nursing workers in Colorado are now fully vaccinated, he said. Thats a figure few communities in the state could match.
did cause a fair number of people that had just been sort of sitting and not getting the vaccine to go ahead and make the decision to become vaccinated in order to continue to be a health care provider, Farmer said.
But the mandate, and deadline, also created a lot of anxiety for nursing homes. The labor market is extremely tight and the long-term care sector is wary of losing any employees.
The workforce shortage is just putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the whole health care system right now, he said. We’re fearful of losing any of our capacity to provide care.
Ultimately, 89 percent of workers at skilled nursing facilities had been fully vaccinated through the middle of last week. Few or no employees refused the vaccine and failed to get an exemption, though 5 percent of those workers still needed to get a second dose to be considered fully vaccinated by the deadline. Another 5 percent have either medical or religious exemptions.
Vaccinations rose about 15 percent after the mandate for the three categories that didnt include hospital workers .
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Cdc Researchers Identify 1200 Cases Of Post
The coronavirus vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna may have caused heart problems in more than 1,200 Americans, including about 500 who were younger than age 30, according to data reported on Wednesday by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Still, the benefits of immunization greatly outweigh the risks, advisers to the C.D.C. said. They strongly recommended vaccination for all Americans 12 and older.
The heart problems are myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle and pericarditis, inflammation of the lining around the heart. The risk is higher after the second dose of an mRNA vaccine than the first, and much higher in men than in women. Researchers do not know why.
But the side effect is very uncommon, just 12.6 cases per million second doses administered.
C.D.C. researchers estimated that every million second doses given to boys ages 12 to 17 might cause a maximum of 70 myocarditis cases, but would prevent 5,700 infections, 215 hospitalizations and two deaths.
Agency researchers presented the data to members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which makes recommendations on vaccine use in the United States.
Most cases were mild, with symptoms like fatigue, chest pain and disturbances in heart rhythm that quickly cleared up, the researchers reported. Of the 484 cases reported in Americans under age 30, the C.D.C. has definitively linked 323 cases to vaccination. The rest remain under investigation.