Employees and volunteers who work for Henry Ford Health System will need to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 by Sept. 10 or face termination, the organization’s chief operating officer said Tuesday.
“Vaccination will be a condition of employment in the same way that we have with the annual flu shot,” Bob Riney, Henry Ford’s president of healthcare operations and chief operating officer, said at a press briefing. The system has hospitals in Detroit, Wyandotte, West Bloomfield, Macomb and Jackson.
“To be considered vaccinated under this new mandate, our team members must have had both doses of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines or a single dose of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine,” Riney said. “This applies to all team members, medical staff, students, volunteers, and contractors that do business on our facilities, including employees who work remotely.”
Employees can obtain an exemption for medical or religious reasons, but those will be scrutinized, said Riney and Dr. Dennis Cunningham, the system’s director of infectious control and prevention.
Cunningham said less than 1% of the system’s 33,000 employees and volunteers are exempted from flu shorts, and he expects the number to be about the same with COVID0-19.
“There are very few reasons not to get the vaccine” for medical reasons, and typically involve severe allergies, Cunningham said. Pregnant workers will be encouraged to get vaccinated, but can wait until after they give birth.
In regards to religious objections, an employee would have to show that he or she has been exempted from other vaccines. “It has to be something where you’ve demonstrated (an objection) to other types of vaccines,” Cunningham said. “You can’t just say ‘I have a religious objection to this vaccine.’ "
Those who have acquired natural immunity through being infected with COVID-19 are not exempt from vaccination. Cunningham said that’s because there is some research that suggests the vaccine offers greater protection than natural immunity, particularly in regards to some of the variants.
“So we’re following the recommendations of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and other professional medical societies that say it’s really best to get the vaccine,” Cunningham said.
About 68% of Henry Ford workers and volunteers have been vaccinated so far, and the percentage is higher for frontline health-care providers.
“We know that not everyone will agree with this decision,” Riney said, but the organization will be communicating “in a very frank and transparent manner with our team members, making sure that we are providing all the support so that they understand the rationale behind the decision and dispelling any concerns that they may.
“At the end of the day there may be some individuals that will choose not to be vaccinated, and choose to leave employment at Henry Ford Health System,” he said. “But we don’t anticipate that number will be very large and we certainly are going to do everything we can to mitigate it.”
Although Henry Ford is the first hospital system in Michigan to mandate COVID-19 vaccines, Riney said there are 18 other health-care systems around the country who have announced similar policies.
Earlier this month a federal judge in Texas dismissed a lawsuit filed against Houston Methodist Hospital by employees who challenged its COVID-19 vaccine mandate. In the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas’ written decision, Judge Lynn N. Hughes said the plaintiffs had no case, saying employers are allowed to mandate vaccines for its workers.
Houston Methodist Hospital has since suspended 178 employees who refused to be immunized.
“There’s no question this will evoke various reactions from people,” Riney said. “But at the end of the day, this a leading health system that’s helped navigate this community through three major surges and just dealt with so much heartbreak and loss.
“We want to do everything we can to be a role model and lead the way,” he said. “We don’t want to be back here in the fall with an emerging Delta variant or another variant.”
Read more on MLive:
Why northern Michigan has both highest vaccinated counties and big pockets of vaccine hesitancy
Michigan students should still mask up, state says
How concerned should we be about the delta variant of the coronavirus?
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