More on the Memorial Hermann and Baylor vaccination mandates

Memorial Hermann: Get your shots or get out.

Memorial Hermann on Monday said it will require all employees to be vaccinated by Oct. 9, becoming the third Houston healthcare institution to do so.

The hospital system follows Baylor College of Medicine, which announced its employee vaccine requirement last week, nearly two months after Houston Methodist reached its vaccination deadline.

Managers and other leaders across the organizations must be compliant by Sept. 11. The deadline is Oct. 9 for all other employees, including the system’s affiliated providers and volunteers.

About 83 percent of Memorial Hermann’s workforce is fully vaccinated, including 87 percent of bedside staff, 95 percent of managers and above and all executive leaders, according to the hospital system. Memorial Hermann employs more than 29,000 people.

Exemptions will be made for those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical or religious reasons. Employees who are not exempt and refuse the vaccine “will be deemed to have voluntarily resigned their position,” said Dr. David L. Callender, Memorial Hermann President and CEO.

He said spiking hospitalizations and COVID cases prompted the move.

“We’ve been waiting a little bit just to make sure the circumstances fully warrant moving forward, and we think they do now, “ Callender said Monday. “We’re seeing the impact of the very aggressive delta variant, a significant spike in new cases and hospitalizations, and about 50 percent of Houston’s population remains unvaccinated, which means the community continues to be at risk.”

See here for the background. I don’t think that justification needs any further explaining. By the way, the Memorial Hermann CEO wrote an op-ed in March, just as we were starting to hear about some scary variants out there, begging Greg Abbott to leave mask mandates in place. We know how that went.

Here’s Baylor, from about a week ago, with a somewhat less punitive approach.

Baylor employees have until Sept. 15 to become fully vaccinated or they may be subjected to discipline, said Dr. James McDeavitt, senior vice president and dean of clinical affairs at the medical school. However, he believes termination will be a “rare event.”

“We thought it was important to make a statement,” McDeavitt said. “As an organization, we are committed to vaccination, and we have been involved in all stages of the pandemic, from the development of vaccines, testing, clinical trials of medications and critical care of patients. (Requiring vaccines) was a necessary step for us to close that loop.”

Baylor’s vaccine policy had been in the works for some time, McDeavitt said, but the spike in cases was a catalyst for releasing the policy this week. “The spreading of the delta variant had a role in the timing of the release of this,” he said.

The policy, which was sent to employees Wednesday, details requirements for annual influenza and COVID-19 shots, except for people who have religious beliefs or a medical condition that would preclude them from becoming immunized.

So far, employee feedback has been positive, he said.

“I haven’t gotten any negative pushback to date,” McDeavitt said.

Baylor looked to Houston Methodist’s example when developing its policy, McDeavitt said. Methodist was the first health system nationwide to require vaccinations for employees in early June. More than 150 hospital employees resigned or were fired over the new policy — fewer than 1 percent of Methodist’s 25,000 employees.

“We will roll this out differently than Houston Methodist did. If someone flat-out refuses to become vaccinated, we don’t intend to jump to termination,” McDeavitt said.

For employees who are vaccine-hesitant, there will be a human resources process to further encourage them to take the shots. McDeavitt hopes no one is terminated over the new vaccination policy.

We’ll see how that works for them. I don’t care either way, as long as it gets the desired result. There’s no indication in that story of how many BCM employees are already vaccinated. MH’s 83% is not bad, but obviously it can – and will – be better. I wish they had done this sooner, but at least they are doing it. Texas Children’s, where are you on this?

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