COVID vaccine mandates essential for all healthcare and nursing home employees

Give Gov. Ron DeSantis credit. He started fighting COVID-19 by prioritizing vaccinations at nursing homes and for seniors over 65. Too bad, that that one good decision and subsequent efforts to encourage vaccines are being undermined by people who should know better — nursing home operators, their staffs and other healthcare workers.

You read that right. Many men and women working the frontlines in positions most responsible for caring for Florida's elderly, sick and vulnerable are shunning a proven procedure that would protect their patients. For months, nursing home and healthcare operators have waited on recalcitrant workers to become aware, get educated, see the light and take the shot. Many of them still haven't. Nonsensical doesn't quite explain the reluctance that amounts to healthcare professionals blowing off a key part of healthcare.

Millions of people in the United States have received COVID-19 shots under some of the world's most intense medical safety monitoring. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration just gave full approval for the Pfizer vaccine, a new safety standard that will open the door for more employers to require employees to get vaccinated. The Biden administration also weighed in, using the leverage of the federal government to force nursing homes to make sure their staffs are vaccinated.

With the spike in delta variant cases, hospitalizations and deaths, you'd think the push to require COVID vaccinations for employees who have direct contact with the public, especially in healthcare and geriatrics, would be seen as prudent. Well, think again.

Florida's nursing homes are balking at federal plan to make COVID vaccines a requirement for work. They believe the new mandate will make it more difficult to retain workers, and their trade group, the Florida Health Care Association, has a survey to back their stance. About 9 of 10 nursing homes in Florida face serious workforce shortages, according to the association's July survey. "As our members maintain their commitment to protecting our state's most vulnerable residents, it's important they have the support they need to attract and retain long-term staff," Emmett Reed, the association's CEO, said in a statement on the vaccine requirement. "A strong and stable long-term care workforce is a crucial part of meeting the needs of those we care for today, as well as an aging population that is continually growing."

There's been some movement among South Florida hospitals that have relied on urging their employees to learn more about the vaccine than requiring them to take it. Baptist Health of South Florida has announced that its medical staff, volunteers and other employees must get the vaccine by Oct. 31. The decision means Boca Raton Hospital, Bethesda Hospital East and Bethesda Hospital West will soon join the West Palm Beach Veterans Affairs Medical Center as the only hospitals in Palm Beach County to require their workers be vaccinated.

Staffing shortages are indeed a problem for nursing homes, and to the industry's credit, steps have been taken to provide better pay and benefits to retain good employees. Unfortunately, fixing structural workplace problems will take time and changes in the way society ultimately cares for the infirm and elderly, a luxury we currently don't have due to the immediate devastation of the virus.

COVID-19 is still a problem in Florida for the elderly. People between ages 65 and 74 are six times as likely to be hospitalized from coronavirus when compared to the 18-to-29 age group, and are 95 times more like to die from the virus, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The older you are, the worse the statistics. The CDC estimates that for persons 85 and older, compared to the younger group, are 15 times as likely to be hospitalized and 600 times as likely to die. Even in a state that averages more than 21,000 new infections each day, those health stats involving the elderly are downright frightening.

Vaccinated healthcare workers send a clear sign that their facility is doing all that it can to protect its operations, staff and, more importantly, vulnerable patients. It strengthens the overriding message that the industry is practicing what it preaches when it comes to providing healthcare and curbing the spread of the virus.

The mandate to require nursing home staffs and volunteers to be vaccinated is an important step that should be expanded to include all healthcare facilities.

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