As the first deadline for the federal vaccine mandate passes, some Vermont hospitals said they will continue to require coronavirus vaccinations of their employees. At least one hospital opted to alter its policy, however.
The Biden administration’s policy would have required some 17 million health care workers — thousands of them in Vermont — to get their first dose by Dec. 6 and be fully vaccinated the following month. But with multiple federal courts temporarily blocking the policy late last month, the future of the mandate is uncertain for now.
At least three health systems in Vermont, including Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health, Brattleboro Memorial Hospital and the Brattleboro Retreat, have recently said their coronavirus vaccine requirements are still in effect.
At Rutland Regional Medical Center, by contrast, officials temporarily lifted their coronavirus vaccine requirement “pending legal review,” according to a Dec. 1 email to employees, which was obtained by VTDigger. The southern Vermont hospital system requires unvaccinated workers to get tested weekly, according to the email.
The decision to keep or lift an internal vaccine policy is fraught, especially because staffing hospitals has only gotten more difficult as the pandemic wears on, said Jeff Tieman, president and chief executive officer of the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems.
Elsewhere in the country, vaccine mandates have prompted fears of a mass exodus of qualified health workers who refuse to get vaccinated.
“We cannot afford to lose staff right now,” Tieman said. “No one can. Not Vermont, New England or anywhere in the country. … We’re in a really challenging space with staffing, whether it’s intensive care units or emergency departments or medical-surgical floors.”
At the same time, Tieman said, hospitals want as many of their staff members to be fully vaccinated as possible because it can staunch the spread of coronavirus, and eventually reduce the added pressure from the virus on the health system.
Representatives from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health, the biggest of the three, said in a statement last week the legal battle over the federal mandates is “irrelevant” to its internal vaccine requirements. The New Hampshire-based health system, which also operates two facilities in southern Vermont, required its more than 13,000 employees to be vaccinated or get an exemption by Sept. 30.
New Hampshire is one of several states to challenge the federal government’s vaccine policy in court, but Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health spokesperson Audra Burns said the lawsuit has no bearing on the hospital chain.
“Our self-imposed mandate preceded (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ mandate) and the agency’s ability to enforce its mandate, or not, is irrelevant,” she wrote.
As of last week, more than 99% of Dartmouth-Hitchcock employees have either been vaccinated or secured an exemption, according to Burns. The health system has not disclosed the number of exemptions, however.
The Brattleboro Retreat, the largest psychiatric facility in Vermont and the only psychiatric hospital that cares for children, mandated vaccinations after it had an outbreak in October. Leadership at the Brattleboro hospital intends to keep its policy “just like Dartmouth and many other hospitals,” Louis Josephson, the Retreat’s president and CEO, said in an email. About five employees left their positions after the policy went into effect, he added.
“We have not noticed a more challenging time recruiting because of the mandate, but like all hospitals we are struggling with significant workforce needs,” he wrote. “Many, many staff at all levels and departments have thanked us for mandating vaccination at the Retreat.”
At Rutland Regional, where the mandate has been temporarily suspended effective Dec. 1, officials said they will reinstate their policy “if required to do so by a federal regulatory agency,” according to a statement by Brian Kerns, vice president of human resources at the hospital.
The impact of such mandates on staffing levels at the hospital remains to be seen, Kerns wrote, however “our preference is to avoid mandates where possible and instead work with staff to achieve the same goals voluntarily.”
Rutland Regional is the second largest hospital in Vermont. Roughly 92% of staff members there are fully vaccinated, according to Kerns, and efforts are “constantly underway to increase that percentage through availability and education.”
At Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, where a mandate also went into effect in October, no changes have been made yet, but the hospital appears to be more muted in its commitment to the policy long-term. Executives plan to “keep an eye on the matter as it works its way through the litigation process,” spokesperson Gina Pattison said.
Pattison said on Friday that all of the hospital’s 600-plus employees have been vaccinated.
The federal government has appealed the temporary ban, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a Dec. 2 memo.
“While CMS remains confident in its authority to protect the health and safety of patients … it has suspended activities related to implementation and enforcement of this rule pending future developments in the litigation.”
