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The Methodist Hospital System in Houston, Texas will soon require its 26,000 employees to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, which a spokeswoman said appears to be the first such move by a large U.S. hospital system.
The development was shared in an email GM Marc Boom sent to managers on Wednesday. He gave them until mid-April to get “at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine or get an approved exemption.” No deadline for all employees was indicated in the email.
About 95% of management and all executives have received vaccines to date, compared to about 83% of employees, including everyone from doctors and nurses to cafeteria workers, according to Boom’s email. Religious and medical exemptions will be allowed in “very rare cases,” according to a document outlining frequently asked questions and linked in the email.
“As part of the Methodist management of Houston, we need to lead by example and get ourselves vaccinated,” Boom wrote. “Thank you for getting the vaccine and thank you for leading your staff to make the right decision to help protect our patients.”
Whether to mandate coronavirus vaccines is one that grapples with a wide range of employers. The Houston Methodists’ decision comes at a time when experts say it is unclear whether Covid-19 vaccines can, or should, be mandatory. A central problem is that the vaccines now available have only received emergency use authorization from the United States Food and Drug Administration and not standard approval, a longer and more comprehensive process.
Full approval
Nancy Foster, American Hospital Association vice president of patient safety and quality policy, said if hospitals and health systems recommend vaccines to both their staff and the public, most will wait. probably to decide to make it mandatory until vaccines get FDA approval, which has yet to happen. “
Amy Rose, a Methodist spokeswoman from Houston, said state and federal labor laws allow private institutions to mandate vaccines and do not distinguish between those that have been approved and those that have. been authorized in an emergency.
In Wednesday’s email, Boom asked managers to start talking about the vaccine with staff members, and said they would soon receive a list of employees who have not yet been vaccinated. Houston Methodist has already made gunfire mandatory for new hires.
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