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MaineHealth defended its decision to vaccinate all hospital workers against COVID-19 on Monday, saying it was following applicable federal and state guidelines until that effort was well underway.
But Maine Medical Center, MaineHealth’s flagship hospital in Portland, was wrong to vaccinate “a small number” of outside consultants hired to help fight an effort to organize nurses, which came after the State has issued guidelines restricting vaccination in Maine residents, network officials said.
“We understand that non-residents of Maine are not eligible for any vaccine and recognize that we made a mistake in vaccinating these people,” MaineHealth said in a written statement in response to a column by Bill Nemitz in the Maine Sunday Telegram from this week.
On Sunday, however, MaineHealth CEO Bill Caron sent a letter to the network’s board confirming he was told in December that the eligibility criteria for the first phase would change to exclude employees from the network. hospital that do not have face to face. contact with patients, including remote, telehealth, administration, information technology and billing personnel.
Caron said he has decided to continue vaccinating all hospital workers, regardless of the rules, as a necessary step to protect the hospital’s operations and infrastructure.
Caron had a “somewhat passionate” exchange with Dr. Nirav Shah, chief of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, saying he was “changing the rules of the game – which he wouldn’t recognize,” Caron said. By this time, MaineHealth had inoculated patient-contacting staff, both clinical and non-clinical, and had started vaccinating staff who were not in front of patients.
“It was on December 29 that I made the decision to continue immunizing members of our level 5 care team even if the governor changed the rules the next day,” Caron said in the letter to the directors. “That day I told our (MaineHealth leadership team) that I and they would potentially have ‘a bull’s-eye on the back’, but that we needed to move forward to protect our healthcare infrastructure. health.
Caron said he would “be making the same decision today… and I know the whole (management team) would be there with me. Our decision was rooted in the values we stand for as a system and we focused on protecting the precious healthcare infrastructure resource entrusted to us. We were disciplined and followed the federal and state guidelines given to us.
MaineHealth CEO Bill Caron, pictured last week ahead of the opening of a mass vaccination clinic in the former Scarborough Downs, said on Monday the company “has followed federal and state guidelines given to us In terms of vaccination. all hospital employees. Derek Davis / Staff Photographer Buy this photo
Although Caron was notified of the change on December 29, it did not appear in the guidelines published on the state’s website until January 13, MaineHealth said Monday.
Caron noted that from the start, the US CDC defined “healthcare workers” to include all healthcare workers, with the goal of protecting healthcare infrastructure. In Maine, hospitals have pledged to lead the COVID-19 vaccination effort following severe public health budget cuts by former Governor Paul LePage and a lack of advanced planning by the current administration.
Additionally, Caron said, after hospitals began immunizing frontline healthcare workers in mid-December, Governor Janet Mills and state health officials began to face a growing pressure from healthcare providers outside of hospital networks to want a vaccine for their workers.
As of Monday, 68% of 22,500 MaineHealth employees had received both Pfizer vaccines, three weeks apart, indicating that most had received at least one vaccine by the time the Maine CDC updated the Phase 1A vaccination guidelines on its online dashboard on Jan. 13, MaineHealth officials said.
Shah declined an interview request on Monday and the Maine CDC did not respond to a request for documents showing various changes to Phase 1A vaccination guidelines.
Jackie Farwell, spokesperson for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, provided a link and summary of the current guidelines, which mirror U.S. CDC guidelines and now exclude administrative staff not in contact with patients and employees working remotely.
“Maine DHHS has informed MaineHealth and other vaccine suppliers of these guidelines and has always communicated this definition,” Farwell said in a prepared statement. “At the end of December, the Maine DHHS further defined for MaineHealth and other vaccine providers the qualified health personnel eligible under Phase 1A to more effectively target vaccines to frontline workers. line.
However, an archived description of eligible Phase 1A healthcare workers that appeared on the Maine CDC’s dashboard prior to January 13 indicated that they were “paid and unpaid staff serving in healthcare facilities. and likely to be exposed directly or indirectly to patients or infectious material. … (They) include clinical staff, including nurses or medical assistants, and support staff (eg, those working in food, environmental and administrative services). It is linked to the US CDC website for more information. At the time, neither site excluded staff who were not dealing with patients.
Meanwhile, on Jan. 12, National Nurses United and the Maine State Nurses Association filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to represent the 1,600 full-time, part-time and per diem nurses in Maine Med.
Within weeks, Maine Med hired Florida-based Reliant Labor Consultants to provide mandatory “training” for nurses “to help them decide whether they want a union to speak on their behalf,” according to an internal memo. Reliant lists “avoid a union” and “fight a union” among its services.
Caron and other MaineHealth officials said Maine Med typically offers the vaccination to contracted service providers who have regular contact with members of the care team or patients.
During the week starting Jan. 17, Maine Med offered a vaccine to approximately 10 out-of-state people who were brought in to “provide support” to nurses and managers to answer questions about the. impact of union membership, according to MaineHealth statement.
However, on Jan. 18, the state released new guidelines that only residents of Maine were eligible for vaccines and MaineHealth erred in vaccinating out-of-state consultants, the statement said.
MaineHealth’s decision to immunize all members of the healthcare team proved beneficial as it began setting up mass vaccination clinics in its service area, the statement said.
“A majority of these employees who worked primarily from home during the pandemic are now redeployed to staff at vaccination clinics,” the statement said. “MaineHealth stands by its decision to secure its entire healthcare system by immunizing its entire healthcare team. We believe this is the best approach for the patients, members of the healthcare team, and the communities we serve.
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