Some Hospitals Toss COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates to Ease Labor Shortages

Some of the largest hospital systems in the United States have tossed COVID-19 vaccine mandates for staff after a federal judge temporarily halted the Biden administration rule that healthcare workers must get them. 

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, hospital operators including HCA Healthcare and Tenet Healthcare Corp. - as well as AdventHealh and the Cleveland Clinic - are tossing the mandates. 

Indeed, hospitals nationwide are struggling with high hospitalization rates and soaring labor costs on top of a lack of staff, including nurses, technicians and janitors. 

Many hospitals already struggled to find workers pre-pandemic; however, the shortages were compounded by burnout among medical workers and the lure of high pay rates offered to traveling nurses. 

As of September, 30 percent of workers at over 2,000 hospitals surveyed by the CDC were unvaccinated. 

In November, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not have the authority to mandate vaccines for healthcare workers, placing a roadblock in the Biden administration rule. The mandate had required all workers at facilities that participate in Medicare and Medicaid to get their second vaccine by January 4. 

Not all hospital systems are tossing the vaccine mandate. Kaiser Permanente, which runs 39 hospitals and hundreds of medical offices, said employees had until December 1 to get vaccinated. On Wednesday, the hospital system terminated hundreds of employees for refusal to do so, and another 1,500 face termination in early January unless they receive an exemption. 

Northwell Health, the largest healthcare provider in New York, also said its mandate remains in place.