Hospital system reverses vaccine order
CLEVELAND — University Hospitals will allow unvaccinated caregivers to continue working after Jan. 4, reversing its earlier mandate, UH said in a statement Thursday.
UH had announced that it would follow the federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. However, a federal court injunction issued Tuesday temporarily blocks the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS) from enforcing the mandate.
CMS deadlines do not apply while the injunction remains in place, UH said.
“Come Jan. 4, unless there is further legal action, caregivers may continue to provide patient care services regardless of their vaccination status,” UH said.
“We continue asking our caregivers, in clinical and nonclinical positions, to get vaccinated or to seek an accommodation. We believe, consistent with the scientific consensus, that COVID-19 vaccines are the most effective way to protect our caregivers, patients and community. The overwhelming majority of our caregivers are vaccinated,” the hospital system said.
The Cleveland Clinic, which also had said it would comply with the Jan. 4 federal vaccination mandate, said Thursday it had nothing to announce at this time.
When other local health systems - including Summa Health and Metrohealth System - announced vaccine mandates for employees in late summer, UH and the Clinic did not.
The Biden administration issued a vaccine mandate in early November for healthcare workers at facilities that received funding through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It would have applied to about 1.7 million workers at 76,000 U.S. facilities.
In November, UH said it would comply with a Jan. 4 federal deadline aimed at health care facilities.
But on Monday, a U.S. District judge in St. Louis granted a preliminary injunction to halt the rule because plaintiffs argued that the CMS lacked authority to implement the requirement, news reports said.
The judge also questioned whether there was enough data about transmissibility and vaccination status, and said he believed the federal order was probably “arbitrary and capricious.”