Nurses Who Won't Vax Threaten Staffing Shortages

[left-of-center2012]

Mandate the vaccine, and some of your nurses will quit. Don’t mandate the vaccine, and some of your nurses will get Covid—rendering them unable to work, or even landing them in the very intensive care unit where they normally work. For a hospital administrator who’s been dealing with nursing shortages escalating throughout the pandemic, this is the dilemma.

“It’s a cynical question, but what gets us to losing the higher amount of staff?” says Alan Levine, chief executive officer of Ballad Health, which has 21 hospitals and other centers serving patients in Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. He decided not to require vaccinations for his health-care workers after modeling suggested he could see 15% of nurses, or as many as 900, leave if he did. That’s more than he anticipates losing to Covid-19 quarantines and illness, even with the most recent surge filling up the network’s ICUs and 130 staffers quarantining on a single mid-August day. At Ballad, 97% of doctors are vaccinated. Among front-line nurses, he estimates vaccination rates hover around 50%.

It’s hard to comprehend how nurses, who see firsthand evidence of how Covid can kill people, could oppose getting a vaccine that’s been shown in numerous studies to provide extraordinary protection against severe illness and death.

But it’s a problem hospital administrators all over the country find themselves facing. In the most recent survey by the American Nurses Association (ANA), fielded as part of a broader coalition of nursing groups intended to combat vaccine hesitancy in its ranks, almost 1 in 8 hadn’t gotten the vaccine or didn’t plan to, despite having had access to the shots for almost nine months.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-26/covid-vaccine-mandates-drive-some-nurses-to-leave-america-s-hospitals

[Texaswitchy]

1. Put them in tents with the other unvaxed.

They can take care of the sick.

[Leith]

6. Voila!

And don't let them near other patients or even inside the hospital building. Problem solved.

[Irish_Dem]

2. So many US adults, even medical professionals, who cannot respond adequately to a crisis situation.

They are not only incapable of helping during a national emergency, they are making things worse.

God forgive them, I sure can't.

[bullwinkle428]

3. We've now officially turned over the asylum to the inmates.

[lindysalsagal]

4. It's gawd.

I swear, between the planet ecology and our human healthcare, we have to choose: Us, or gawd. You can't have both.

[Calculating]

8. Why not?

Maybe some people believe that part of our 'test' is taking care of what God provided for us. The issue is some people believe God gave us the world to dominate, while others believe we're supposed to be good stewards of the world. There's also the "The end is coming soon so nothing matters" group.

[lindysalsagal]

13. Why not? Look how well it's working.

[Wild blueberry]

5. Hospital CEO should be asking, What ends the pandemic and promotes health best?

But that's what happens when our healthcare is merely a business to him.

We are only going to vaccinated healthcare workers.

[Hortensis]

15. Agree with your title and I'm sure that's what almost all are doing.

It doesn't hurt the care provided by for-profit hospitals that most have been able to make very nice profits off the pandemic. They reportedly have had resources to meet the emergency better than "safety net hospitals" that care, for instance, for far more uninsured patients. Serving patients who pay for their care, suspending dividend payments, setting up lines of credit in advance of need. And of course applying for every possible assistance from the government.

Just wish ushering these unfits off the properties was the best way to meet their responsibilities.

[Ms. Toad]

16. It is the best way.

The CEO is looking solely at what will cost him fewer employees - not what will end the pandemic (the title you agree with).

Those he is not ushering off the property impact not only the # of employees in the hospital, but the number of patients. His calculation ignores the infections caused by his unvaccinated staff, since it focuses solely on staffing levels, not on the goal of ending the pandemic.

[Hortensis]

24. Well, I kinda was agreeing with both and by health I was

thinking of admitted patients as well as prospective patients in the community. Fwiw, I can see you're looking at the big picture and it is overwhelmingly serious. But, although ending the pandemic is crucial, if my local medical center prioritized that over the care of its own patients and the welfare of the staff, I'd insist on taking anyone I cared about elsewhere.

I wouldn't take too much from the reporter's words. They far more often than not fail to get truth across as we'd wish it could be. Even in good times, running hospitals involves many complex interdependent issues, requiring revisiting and reevaluation. And these are times that try hospital administrators' souls. Shocking that our hospitals are so stressed that decisions can come down to which of two bad choices will result in fewer deaths -- of patients and staff.

I wonder if this hospital might find a useful approach in doing as Delta is and increase insurance premiums for unvaccinated staff. Delta's will be paying $200/month more reportedly. Crazy as they may sound, I suspect most can be bought, or more accurately in this case will react as needed to a poke in the wallet with a sharp stick.

[Ms. Toad]

17. It is the best way.

The CEO is looking solely at what will cost him fewer employees - not what will end the pandemic (the title you agree with).

Those he is not ushering off the property impact not only the # of employees in the hospital, but the number of patients. His calculation ignores the infections caused by his unvaccinated staff, since it focuses solely on staffing levels, not on the goal of ending the pandemic.

[SharonAnn]

20. Not about nurses getting COVID, but nurses transmitting COVID to patients.

[Calculating]

7. I often wonder how these people are even a part of the same species

It sounds bad to say, but I just don't get it. Do they not have the same minds and ability to think critically? It's like they're a fallen race of humans who've abandoned science and reason and turned back to the dark ages willingly. They might as well be a death cult like the Jim Jones folks.

[Hortensis]

18. What's happening is "enlightening," all right. In the medieval era,

did they look at the odd sorts who suggested systematic counting how many died and recovered to evaluate remedies, or that individual men should have rights (some nuts must have), and wonder that they could be members of the same species?

Of course, they probably just assumed more scientific- and liberal-minded sorts were taken over by demons, now that I think of it. Which seems to be about where they are now.

[Haggard Celine]

9. I spent most of last year in the hospital,

so I got a good look at health care professionals, at least the ones down here. Most of them are very RW. I think it's because of Democratic tendencies to support socialized medical care, which they hate, which is likely because they think it will bring down their wages.

Still, most of them were great caregivers. It did concern me how many of the nurses were adamant about not getting the vaccine. The vaccines weren't ready at that time, of course, but we were discussing whether or not we would take the shot when it was ready. Most of their objections to the vaccines were a result of crap they read on the internet. People think that medical professionals are all well-educated people, but that's not necessarily so. They're educated about their fields, for sure, but lots of them are ignorant about everything else.

[Elessar Zappa]

22. Depends on where you are.

I’m regularly hospitalized in an Albuquerque, New Mexico hospital and I’d say here most are Democrats and liberals. I know most of the nurses are vaccinated. Not sure about nurse’s aides but most of the ones that I’ve talked to have mentioned getting the vaccine.

[Haggard Celine]

23. Yeah, I think you're right.

This is Mississippi, so things are a lot different from some places.

[at140]

10. These anti-vaxxers have...

Paranoia and schizophrenia, for a vaccine which has 0.0018% death rate based on deaths and number of Americans jabbed at the same time frame.

[ismnotwasm]

11. Glad I live in Seattle

This is disgusting

[bluestarone]

12. When they quit i'm sure they will lose their own health insurance at some point!

I say GO FOR IT! (they are more than likely RW idiots anyhow! (i do hope though, that IF they have good medical reasons) they won't be fired!

[KT2000]

14. Our hospital is using

traveling nurses due to shortage. They have not stated the reason for the shortage but they are appealing for rooms to rent to take care of them.

[spanone]

19. My mom was an RN and she would have called them 'fucking morons'

[Azathoth]

21. 15% would quit? Really?

Nursing degrees aren't cheap to come by. Does anyone really think 15% of nurses are going to essentially throw away their careers over this? Sure, a few will. But for the bulk of them, and the majority of anti-vaxxeres overall, this is nothing but an extended temper tantrum over Trump's loss.

[Horse with no Name]

25. What they aren't factoring in is this

There are patients who are refusing to be cared for by unvaccinated staff.

There are vaccinated staff who don’t want to work alongside unvaccinated staff

This is going to come to a head and I expect science will win.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

26. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

These nurses are really ignorant as to how vaccines work. It is sad and painful listening to these nurses get everything wrong