Some in health care aren’t lining up for shots
Administrators seek ways to help workers overcome reluctance to COVID-19 vaccine
By Sandi Doughton
SEATTLE — After a horrific onslaught of COVID-19 killed the majority of residents at a small nursing home in Grant County, Washington, facility director Erica Gaertner couldn’t wait to roll up her sleeve when the first vaccines rolled out.
“I thought, naively I suppose, that everybody else would just fall in line,” she said. “But here I sit with less than 50% of my staff vaccinated.”
Gaertner, who hasn’t fully recovered from her own bout with the novel coronavirus, organized three on-site vaccination clinics at McKay Healthcare & Rehab in the Central Washington town of Soap Lake. She had one-on-one conversations with every reluctant staffer. Still, when Gaertner confided to her management team that she would mandate the vaccine if she could, many threatened to quit.
“The reality is that if I say: ‘You will all get the vaccine or else you won’t be able to work here,’ I could lose half my staff, and I wouldn’t be able to keep the doors open for even a day,” she said.
Despite being first in the nation to qualify for COVID-19 vaccination, health care workers in hospitals, long-term care facilities and other settings haven’t uniformly rushed to take advantage of their position in the queue.
A Kaiser Family Foundation/Washington Post poll found slightly more than half of front-line health workers across the country were vaccinated as of early March. Another 19% said they planned to get the shots. Twelve percent describe themselves as undecided, while more than 1 in 6 — 18% — aren’t interested.
“I think everybody in health care, at least in the leadership ranks, was surprised we didn’t see
95% of our people go out and get vaccinated,” said
Dr. David Knoepfler, chief medical officer for Overlake Medical Center & Clinics in Bellevue, Washington.
The concerns raised by vaccine-wary medical workers aren’t unique and mostly revolve around safety. Rather than mandate the shots — which raises legal questions since none has full FDA approval yet — most organizations are trying to win their workers over through educational outreach, Q&A sessions and role-modeling.
“The quickest way to get somebody to close their mind is to make demands,” said Knoepfler. Namecalling doesn’t help either.
It’s also important to acknowledge the many unknowns about the new vaccines, including uncertainty over how long protection will last and the lack of long-term safety data, he said.
About 70% of Overlake’s 3,500 employees have received the shots as of early April. Among them is Brandy Slade, 41, a registered nurse and director of medical surgical nursing services and clinical education, who initially leaned toward the “no thank you” camp.
Not only was she suspicious of vaccines developed on a “warp speed” timeline, but she’d also experienced a past bad reaction to the flu vaccine, with body aches that persisted for months.
Slade’s change of heart started with a personal tragedy: Her 53-year-old aunt contracted the coronavirus and died within two weeks. “That was my biggest eye-opener,” Slade said.
She was also impressed by anecdotal evidence shared in a safety meeting: The experience of a vaccinated colleague who never got sick despite caring for her stricken husband and kids.
But Slade still harbored misgivings.
“I asked a lot of questions of friends and colleagues who already had it and truly listened to their answers without any judgment of my own,” she said. Discussions with a staff pharmacist helped allay her concerns about messenger RNA technology used in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and provided the final nudge she needed to get to “yes.”
“I just realized that the risk of catching this virus and potentially dying, or passing it on to a loved one who could potentially die, outweighed my fears.”
The Kaiser/Washington Post survey found much lower vaccination rates among Black and Hispanic health care workers — 39% and 44%, respectively — compared to the 57% rate among their white peers. Several health organizations are hoping to correct that imbalance with outreach efforts tailored for employees with varied ethnic and racial backgrounds.
One Seattle chiropractor, who describes herself as a “selective vaxxer as opposed to an anti-vaxxer,” said she has no intention of getting the shots but continues to mask and take other precautions when working with clients.
“To me, it boils down to not enough testing and too many unknowns about the effects of the vaccine itself,” said the 67-year-old, who asked not to be named.
She’s also not comforted by the argument that serious side effects are rare.
Her daughter suffered a stroke at the age of 17, so she knows that uncommon events can happen. “I don’t want to be that rare statistic.”
With the rate of new staff vaccinations slowing down in many places, some health organizations are trying to figure out their next steps.
Some U.S. health systems offer incentives like bonuses or gift cards for workers who get jabbed. A few — including Houston Methodist and Atria Senior Living — will mandate vaccination.
Patient demand may eventually prove to be the most powerful motivator.
One Seattle resident said he dropped his longtime dentist after learning the man wasn’t yet vaccinated. At Washington’s Pullman Regional Hospital, some pregnant patients insist all their caregivers be inoculated. A similar dynamic is beginning to play out in at least a few other hospitals, assisted-living and nursing homes across the state of Washington, administrators said, even though full protective gear is still required.
Privacy is an issue, since federal law protects both patient and staff medical records, said Dale, of the Washington Health Care Association. But requests for vaccinated caregivers are reasonable, he added.
“If it was me or my family member in a facility, I would want the staff to be vaccinated for sure.”