[ad_1]
Up to 30% of medical staff at New Mexico’s largest hospitals have refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19, with some waiting to see side effects in their colleagues and others flatly refusing injections, said hospital officials at a joint press conference on Tuesday. .
The level of resistance among frontline medical workers in northern New Mexico – the first group eligible for vaccinations as part of the state’s vaccine rollout – is lower than in parts of the United States, including including parts of Ohio, California and Texas, where hospital workers reportedly refused the vaccine.
But that’s a much higher rate than medical authorities would prefer.
Matt Bieber, a spokesperson for the State Department of Health, said in an email Tuesday that the agency was not alarmed that more than a quarter of hospital workers in New Mexico were refusing a COVID-19 vaccine.
“The US vaccination effort has only been underway for a month,” Bieber wrote. “The DOH expects the reluctance to decrease over time. The polls indicate that things are moving in this direction. “
Dr David Gonzales, chief medical officer at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, said about 70 to 75 percent of health workers there accepted a vaccine.
Some Christus St. Vincent employees wanted to see how others were doing before receiving theirs, he said during the virtual weekly update on medical facilities’ COVID-19 efforts.
“And after seeing how they were doing, and their side effects were minimal after the first dose, the rest of the workforce started signing up for their vaccinations,” Gonzales said.
Dr Rohini McKee, quality and safety manager at the University of New Mexico hospital, said the facility does not ask workers if they reject the vaccine – or why.
But McKee said about 80% of UNM hospital workers have been vaccinated so far.
Because the vaccine is available in the United States through emergency federal clearance, there is no precedent for forcing medical workers to formally refuse it and explain why, as they might for vaccines that have. been fully licensed, said Dr Jeff Salvon-Harman. , Head of Patient Safety at Presbyterian Healthcare Services.
Those who refuse established vaccines must take other precautions to protect patients, he said.
Doctors said they hope to achieve an immunization rate closer to 100% in their hospitals in the coming months, as they educate employees about vaccine safety and workers see their colleagues not suffering from any adverse effects. serious. In the meantime, they said, people must continue to wear face masks, practice social distancing and avoid mass gatherings to ensure daily cases of the coronavirus continue to decline in the state.
“It’s a very, very small decrease that we’re seeing – not one that inspires a lot of confidence,” McKee said.
Although fewer people are currently hospitalized in New Mexico for COVID-19 than in previous weeks, hospitals are seeing higher than usual numbers of patients with other illnesses, such as the flu, doctors said.
“While we have seen a decrease in COVID cases… we are also staying above typical seasonal volumes, running 110 to 120 percent of usual capacity,” Salvon-Harmon said, referring to Presbyterian facilities.
Dr Vesta Sandoval, chief medical officer for Lovelace Health System, said the organization was also seeing a high volume of patients. “The plateau we are seeing is at a very high level. It is not a great feeling of comfort for all of our facilities. “
Doctors also addressed the faster-spreading strain of the coronavirus that was first reported in Europe and recently emerged in New Mexico.
They cited reports showing that current vaccines are effective against the mutated virus.
Although the new strain is more transmissible, it doesn’t cause more serious illness, McKee said. While it seems like a good thing, she said, a greater number of people infected with the virus leads to a higher death rate.
“We have to take this seriously,” she said. “We need to double the behaviors that we know to work against this virus until we are all vaccinated.”
[ad_2]
Source link