Hospital workers walk out over vax mandate


South Boston News

A nationwide movement protesting mandatory COVID-19 vaccines made its way to South Hill Wednesday as nearly 60 healthcare workers and community supporters gathered at the entrances to VCU Health Community Memorial Hospital to push back against its vaccine mandate for employees.

Dressed mostly in scrubs and standing under the blazing sun, protestors waved signs saying, “Stop The Mandate,” “Yesterday’s Heroes, Today’s Black Sheep,” and “We worked through the pandemic with no vaccine, now they want to FIRE US!” Passing motorists, including more than one emergency transport vehicle, honked their horns in support of the protestors as they drove by.

One local business person brought the protesters coolers of water.

Richmond-based VCU Health, which includes Community Memorial Hospital in South Hill, made the announcement last week that it would mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for all employees and contractors, except those with religious or health-related exemptions.

The hospital system joins a growing number of medical facilities, universities, companies, and state, and local governments that have mandated employee vaccine requirements to ensure the safest possible workplaces. For the majority of VCU Health employees, the policy poses no problem. According to the hospital system, more than 70 percent of the VCU Health team members have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

VCU Health Systems Marketing Communications Specialist Kristy Fowler noted that VCU Health believes that “the number of vaccinated employees is likely higher, since our data only reflects vaccinations that took place at our health system at this time. We are working on adding documentation of vaccinations that took place elsewhere into our system.”

The medical professionals who have said “no” to the vaccine run the risk of getting fired — something that has already happened in some hospitals around the country.

Nurses and other staff members who participated in Wednesday’s protest collectively said they are not opposed to the vaccine, only to the mandate. Their reasons vary for choosing to not receive the vaccine. One cited the possibility of experiencing exceedingly rare but known side effects such as Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and myocarditis. Others say they have either a religious or health-related reason for not wanting to be vaccinated. They, too, were objecting to the mandate, describing what they said was an “over-reach” by VCU aimed at those seeking an exemption.

A spokesperson with VCU Health issued this statement after learning of the protest: “At this time, we estimate that a small number of VCU Health Community Memorial Hospital team members participated in the Walk Out Wednesday initiative.

“We are aware that not all team members support mandating the COVID-19 vaccine. We continue to provide evidence-based information to address any safety or efficacy concerns related to the available vaccines.”

Through listening sessions and a survey of VCU Health employees occurring over a couple of weeks, hospital officials concluded that a majority of the employees — over 60 percent— were in favor of mandating the COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment.

“We must keep our facilities, staff, patients and guests safe from the growing threat of the Delta virus and other variants. Vaccination is the most effective way to do it,” Fowler explained.

Ken Kurz, director of marketing and development at VCU Health Community Memorial Hospital, said, “We appreciated the respectful manner exhibited by those participating in the demonstration.”

Everyone who was standing on the protest line Wednesday said they were there during their lunch break or on their day off. None of them would have walked off the job or left their patients in danger. The explanation, one nurse said, was offered as proof of their serious commitment to their jobs and the hospital.

“We love working at CMH and we love this community. We would never do anything to endanger our patients,” said one nurse who asked not to be named out of fear of reprisals. She was receiving regular texts from friends inside the hospital telling her the rumor circulating through the halls of CMH was that all protestors were going to be reprimanded.

Another nurse, who asked not to be named, said she would be seeking a religious exemption. Before it will be granted, she’s been told that she must cite a doctrine, scripture, or observance that supports her religious beliefs, explain how taking this vaccine violates her beliefs, and identify the specific component of the covid vaccine that is against her held beliefs which then exempts her from having the vaccine administered.

One reason she gave for not wanting the vaccine had to do with her understanding that many vaccines are developed using aborted fetal tissue and for religious reasons she is opposed to this practice. She said, “I know that fetal cells were used in the research of covid vaccines but not sure of the extent of their use into the development of the vaccine” as that information is deemed proprietary. She is in a quandary over how to prove she qualifies for the religious exemption.

A nurse, who has been with the hospital for more than 20 years, said she has an auto-immune disease. Her particular auto-immune issue she said is one that expressly does not qualify for an exemption under VCU’s new COVID-19 vaccine policy.

She says she’s worried that because RNA-based vaccines such as Moderna and Bio-NTech are known to trigger flare ups of auto-immune disorders or advance any underlying immunological or serological abnormalities associated with the disease and that taking the vaccine would have a negative impact on her health.

She continued laying out her objection saying that because the manufacturers of the vaccines are protected legally from those who suffer adverse reactions, she has no recourse, should she get sick. She asked, “who will pay my medical bills and support my family if I get sick?”

Several nurses shared their concern after reading an Aug. 10 memo from CMH CEO Scott Burnette that pregnancy and breast feeding would not qualify for a medical exemption. According to Burnette “the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology has come out in full support of vaccination for women who are considering pregnancy, are pregnant or who are breast feeding. The risks to unvaccinated women who are pregnant and contract COVID are much higher than those who are fully vaccinated.”

Even the CDC publicly acknowledged that the “vaccines have not been studied in people who are breast feeding. There are limited data available on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines on people who are breast feeding, effects of the vaccination on the breast-fed baby, and effects on milk production or excretion.”

Other CMH staff who were protesting the mandate on Wednesday said they objected to the hypocrisy of the policy on several grounds:

They say they’ve been told it is considered an assault to order patients at the hospital to be vaccinated, so why does that same rule not apply to them.

Burnette addressed this issue in his Aug. 10 memo saying, “We cannot provide any treatment to patients that is against their will. We offer the vaccine, but we cannot make them take it. Further, it takes up to two weeks for the vaccine to become effective and, depending on the vaccine, requires two doses. Most of our patients are discharged in about 5 days.”

A statement released Monday from hospital officials at VCU Health notes that “requiring the vaccine at this point in our fight against the pandemic is the right thing to do. It protects our patients, team members and their families by nearly eliminating their risk of getting severely ill or dying from the disease.”

If this is a safety issue, several nurses asked then why are not all safety protocols followed on a regular basis? One nurse said, “VCU is stating that mandating this vaccine is for the safety of the patients and the employees, but VCU cannot simply dictate when and what is safe for their employees. Throughout this pandemic, nurses were made to share used PAPR hoods with other nurses and reuse one-time use N95 masks for weeks on end. These same masks were then sterilized, but now safety is a concern?

When this same question was posed to Fowler, she replied that all health facilities under the VCU Health Systems umbrella continue to follow all CDC- approved infection-prevention guidelines, including protocols for donning and doffing PPE, and requiring employees to fill out an attestation with a temperature reading that they have no symptoms and are okay to work. “If staff are vaccinated and develop symptoms, they do not report to work, instead isolate at home and contact employee health for further guidance, [and] all patient-facing staff are required to wear N-95 masks while working with suspected or confirmed patients with COVID-19, and either a face shield or goggles and we do have an adequate supply.”

She acknowledged that early on in the fight against the pandemic when PPE was in short supply, the hospital “laundered gowns and UV treated masks to ensure proper sterilization making these supplies safe to reuse.” Now that “supplies are readily available, we have switched back to disposable gowns, masks, and N95 respirators.”

Several protestors said they were told that the unvaccinated could continue working at CMH if they agreed to submit to weekly testing at $210 per test, which they must pay. Since even the vaccinated can carry and transmit the disease, they ask why are not the vaccinated staff also subjected to weekly testing?

Fowler however said that “at present, the health system will pay the $210 testing fee for employees who receive a religious or medical exemption from being vaccinated.” However, in his Aug. 10 memo Burnette contradicts Fowler. The memo reads, “the only people who will be exempt from the vaccine are those that have received a religious exemption or an exemption for medical contraindications. They will be required to have weekly COVID testing performed on them. If the option to allow testing vs. the vaccine were granted, the cost of the test would be passed on to the team member. At present, the charge for the test is $210.”

Other protestors said they wanted an answer to the question: if hospital policy is all about informed consent for its patients, how is it informed consent to order medical staff to submit to a vaccination that has many unknown consequences, and which has not received full FDA approval. “Who can say what will happen 5 or 10 years from now?” one nurse asked rhetorically.

The bottom line, according to another nurse is “we all have medical degrees and an understanding of the science behind the disease and its spread. Most of us are not yet ready to be vaccinated and don’t want to be forced.”

While it’s not 100 percent clear what the VCU Health Systems and CMH will do in response to either the protest or the vaccine objections, hospitals may be well within their rights to fire workers who don’t take the shot, and the workers may have very little recourse.

Fowler acknowledged that “compliance with the vaccine policy is a condition of employment with VCU Health System. Failure to comply with this policy will result in disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment.”

Burnette was more direct telling CMH employees that “team members will be given a deadline for obtaining the vaccine or obtaining an exemption. If that deadline is reached and the team member has not completed either of the tasks, they will be terminated.”

The federal Emergency Use Authorization law and the FDA, including the FDA Fact Sheets, state unequivocally that each person has the “option to accept or refuse” the shots as the shots are experimental and investigational and have not been licensed by the FDA. However, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in its guidance to employers released May 28 ruled that:

• Federal EEO laws do not prevent employers from requiring employees physically entering the workplace to be vaccinated for COVID-19, subject to the ADA’s and Title VII’s reasonable accommodation provisions.

• Reasonable accommodations must be provided for employees who do not get vaccinated for COVID-19 because of a disability or a sincerely held religious belief, unless providing an accommodation would pose an undue hardship on the operation of the employer’s business.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in its most recent guidance noted that vaccines cannot be mandated under the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization absent state or local law. But on June 10 the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a temporary safety provision for the healthcare sector that included additional compliance obligations for healthcare employers including the ability to mandate vaccination unless required to accommodate an employee under various, applicable anti-discrimination laws. Steps recommended for employers to following include:

• Training managers and supervisors on how to recognize reasonable accommodation requests for any employer requiring COVID-19 vaccination.

• Assuming that an employee’s request for religious accommodation is based on a sincerely held religious belief, practice or observance.

• Offering reasonable accommodations such as wearing a face mask, social distancing, working a modified shift, getting periodically tested for COVID-19, telework, or reassignment.

Despite the latest guidance, no federal agency has specifically authorized employer-implemented mandatory vaccination programs for EUA vaccines that have not undergone the full biological approval process.

As for the protestors, the National Labor Relations Act provides protections to employees who engage in protests with coworkers related to their own working conditions though employees’ rights in this area are not unlimited.

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