Hospital staff voice concerns about possible vaccine mandate

At the August 31, Hot Springs Health board meeting representatives of the hospital staff presented some statements during an Employee Listening Session about their concerns of a vaccination mandate from their employer. Several staff members were present and some spoke to the board.

Staff comments

One of those speaking was a Nurse who has worked at the hospital for the past three years in med-surgery, the emergency room and postpartum.

She presented a statement that read, “The COVID-19 pandemic has brought forth many points of contention in the course of two years. Points of contention range from quarantine to masks and now to vaccination mandates. During this time, I would like to express urgency to the hospital board in assisting our facility to do what is best for our employee morale/longevity and our community.”

“Several personal beliefs that I wish to share now are grounded within the nursing code of ethics and how those principles relate to supporting and respecting our private health choices. Nursing ethics is part of the curriculum in obtaining a VSN.”

“The nursing code of ethics is an oath that I swore by when I received my bachelor’s of science in nursing from Denver College of Nursing. Within the confines of the nursing code of ethics lies four main principles: autonomy, beneficence, justice and non-maleficence.”

“Autonomy plays a significant role in providing care as a registered nurse. Autonomy requires that each individual patient has the right to self-determination and plays an integral role in the decision-making process. The health care team is responsible for providing all relevant information without providing false hope or false claims.”

“The patient is to be supported in their individual treatment plan, and the RN is responsible for advocating for that patient. Factors influencing autonomy, our culture, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, general health, and social support systems.”

“Beneficence is defined as acting in a way that is good and for the welfare of others, using kindness, care and compassion to support the patient emotionally to the best of my ability, with tolerance and understanding.”

“Justice requires that all nurses must care for all patients with the same level of fairness, despite the patient’s financial abilities, religion, gender, sexual orientation and reproductive decisions.” 

“Non-maleficence is to do no harm. The RN is required to select interventions that will have minimal risk to achieve a beneficial outcome. Starting with the least most invasive care. The nurse collaborates with other health care professionals in public to protect human rights, promote health diplomacy and reduce health disparities.”

“Within the boundaries of the nursing code of ethics, I cannot in good conscience confidently encourage a potentially life-altering inoculation, not knowing well enough that the inoculation could lead to potentially harmful side effects, long or short term, that we have not studied enough as a scientific community.”

“It is pinnacle to harness respect for the individual’s right to make healthcare decisions as those decisions are ours to make and will affect us for a lifetime.” 

“Tense conversations that are borderline harassment and condescending reactions to personal health care questions, specifically vaccination status, are causing myself and my fellow coworkers immense emotional stress and are completely unnecessary and avoidable.” 

“It is within this new fight, a.k.a. vaccination status, that our facility has lost personal discretion. I have witnessed providers and fellow coworkers judging and ridiculing instead of simply coming to work, doing our job, working as a team for our patients and supporting one another.”

“The nursing unit is the lifeblood of this hospital and we are struggling. We were already struggling prior to the recent surge. We now find ourselves several RNs down with weight being placed on the few that are here full time. We need help.” 

“Our facility is closing the door to opportunities of exemplary potential hires that we desperately need, not based on merit or experience or education. We are choosing to hire someone fundamentally based on vaccination status.” 

The nurse continued and said, “I have worked my way through a dysfunctional home life as a child into adulthood with parents that were abusive and addicted to drugs and alcohol.” At this point, the nurse became emotional and gathered herself. The nurse continued and gave her background of significant achievements and said, “and now have the life that I dreamed of. Nursing is my heart and my soul. Nursing is what I was made for. And it is my humble desire that I ask you not to judge me on my vaccination status.”

“I ask you to judge me on my patient care, the respect I have for myself, my coworkers, my community members and my work ethic. Thank you. And then also disclosed in this folder are the voices of the hospital staff. I hope and pray that you will read and listen to our sincere intentions and wishes. And I have to go to work because there’s nobody to cover for me.”

A Second Nurse, who has worked for Hot Springs Health for about 17 years, also presented a statement. The Second Nurse said, “I want to thank the board members for serving on the board. I’m grateful to know our hospital is in the hands of people who know our community and understand its needs. I am thankful that I can come to petition your help. I’m here tonight to represent many of my coworkers at Hot Springs Health who are not vaccinated. And as far as I know, that is forty-four percent of employees.”

“This includes a wide variety of professionals, including nurses, receptionists, surgery, respiratory and radiology techs who have chosen not to be vaccinated. I am here on their behalf to ask the board to not mandate the COVID-19 vaccination for Hot Springs health employees.”

“Please do not place this burden on us. We understand that the federal government is pushing for the vaccinations for Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement.”

“We understand that puts you in a hard place as a small hospital that needs that reimbursement. However, we are watching states and other hospitals close by choosing not to mandate. We are asking the board that you will please do research and reach out to other places and facilities to see how they are getting around this without a mandate. We will help if needed.” 

“Please find alternatives before you ask this of your employees. We have heard that the hospital in Powell said they found they would lose too many employees if this was mandated. So they decided not to. The Buffalo hospital said a similar thing. These are just two close resources that could be utilized.” 

“You may have heard some of the reasons that many of us do not want the shot. Some of our reasons include: this is completely a new vaccine with not enough time allowed to prove the safety of the vaccine, there are concerns of reactions, there are concerns about what this may do to a fetus if someone is pregnant. I know of a few employees here who had the vaccine and had reactions or developed heart problems after. And they do not want the risk. They don’t want to risk it again with a second dose or a booster. Many of us have already had Covid or been exposed to Covid many times. We know that our bodies can create antibodies on their own, and we do not see a need for the vaccination.”

“I feel a person can find any information they want on the Internet, for or against the vaccine.”

“We could sit here all night and explain the reasons we do not want to get it, but I really don’t think any of us should have to explain the reasons we don’t want the vaccine to our employer, just like I shouldn’t have to explain to my employer why I go to my church.”

“I believe that this is becoming a form of discrimination. Like most of us here, I was born and raised in America. I expect to be free. I expect to be able to choose what I put in my body.”

“I expect not to be forced into anything. It’s a terrible thought for the federal government would use Medicare reimbursements and other forms of leverage to take away our freedoms. I hope our hospital will not participate in taking away freedoms.”

“I’ve already been told by someone who is in a leadership position that I do have a choice. This person was implying that my choice could be not to work at the hospital. This leaves me and many others with many questions.”

“Will I need to uproot my family and move to another city or state with the outline of this mandate? Will I need to find a new job at a nearby hospital that is not requiring the mandate? Or should I give up my profession that I worked for over 20 years to be proficient in and find a new job to keep from moving? Or should I cave in and sacrifice my body to support my family here? If we, the employees here, have to ask these questions, we want to ask the board, please ask yourselves some important questions, too.”

“How will the hospital function if up to 44 percent of employees leave due to a mandate? Will it be hard to hire employees who will take the place of these people who work difficult shifts and take large amounts of calls?”

“We hope the board will ask how the loss of these people will affect our community. Many of these employees stimulate our small economy. Many of them are educated people who volunteer in the community. They support the schools and other programs. These are people who love this little town.”

The Second Nurse became emotional and struggled to speak as she said, “How will this affect us if we lose such citizens? I come here tonight to ask for your help. We urge you to carefully research and consider the decision about possibly mandating the vaccine. And please consider carefully the consequences it may bring to individuals, the hospital and the community. Thank you.”

Lastly, participating in the employee listening session, a Third Nurse with a 20-year career, spoke. She said, “I went ahead and took the first shot. I had a horrible reaction that threw me into the E.R. with cardiac problems, of which I’m still seeing a cardiologist.

“I do regret taking the first one. I’m not taking the second one. Now, actually Covid vaccinated people are getting Covid as well and spreading it as well as non vaccinated. That was my experience. And I wasn’t the only one. There were numerous of us who had reactions.”

Board response

Chairman Dr. Bill Williams replied to the statements and said, “OK, well, we appreciate you all coming, and like I said, we’re here to listen. Regarding the rumors going around a week ago. Heath [Overfield] and I both heard that we were meeting tonight and that we’re going to fire you all because you weren’t vaccinated. Well, we’re here to say that, we don’t fire anybody except our CEO, the board doesn’t. And we’ve told every CEO that from the get-go. I think. You know, if it comes down to mandating from the feds as far as not funding us, I think that’s a ways off.”

Dr. William continued and said that if it comes to pass, there may be a lot of politicians and lawyers that will get involved.

He said “before they mandate it for a hospital, there would be weeks or months of litigation and politicization, even more so than it is now. The stats I keep reading and I read it from Alaska to Florida. I know that somewhere around 90 percent of the new hospitalizations are of unvaccinated people.”

“And we very much do appreciate you people. That’s where the rubber meets the road in the hospital with nurses, techs, people that clean the rooms, everybody. We do appreciate you people.”

“I’ve been vaccinated twice. My personal hope is that we can gain some confidence in the vaccine as time goes on now that one’s been fully approved and the other one, the Moderna, which we had here, more, I think more than Pfizer will obtain full approval.”

Dr. Williams said, “I think that you can find anything on the Internet and there’s a lot of people who like to be recognized on the Internet so they can put out something to talk about. And pretty soon it’s retweeted or shared or whatever and becomes gospel.”

“I would urge you all to read your professional journals and see what the vast majority say. But as far as us having plans of mandating it, hey, I don’t think we can mandate it, because A we are a government organization and we’re a pretty small government organization, and B, unless they take our funding and if they take our funding, then it becomes a moot point because we don’t have funding, we don’t have a hospital. Some smart guy that’s on a Zoom with us said ‘no money, no mission.’ So if it comes to that there’ll be some hard choices to make.”

Dr. Williams added that the staff will all be “in the know” as the information will trickle down and that nobody’s going to do anything in the backroom.

Dr. Williams also said, “I agree with [nurse one] that we need to come to work and act as professionals, especially during this trying time for not only this hospital but every hospital in the country.”

Dr. Williams concluded his response and said, “Hang in there. I don’t see any mandates coming down the road in the near future. Who knows about the feds? But not from this board, that’s for sure. Thanks for coming. Thanks for taking care of us.”