Deadlines near for Fresno, Valley health workers to meet COVID-19 vaccine mandate
All but about 4% of the medical staff and other workers at Saint Agnes Medical Center in northwest Fresno met a Tuesday deadline to prove that they’re fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or have an approved medical or religious exemption.
Trinity Health, the Michigan-based parent company of Saint Agnes, issued the mandate in July requiring its employees to get their shots, validate an exemption, or lose their jobs.
“Employees who do not meet criteria for exemption and fail to show proof of vaccination will face termination of employment,” the company said in its July 8 announcement.
That put Trinity Health’s hospitals ahead of a California mandate for all health care workers in the state to be fully vaccinated or gain an exemption by Sept. 30. Many hospitals across Fresno County and the Valley appear to be well on their way for the vast majority of their employees to meet that deadline.
Kelley Sanchez, a spokesperson for Saint Agnes, said that of the hospital’s approximately 2,900 employees, about 4% have yet to take action to file their proof of vaccination or be approved for an exemption. “We anticipate that most of them have received their vaccine and just haven’t uploaded proof yet,” Sanchez said. “They have through (Tuesday) and … it’s human nature to wait until the last minute.”
Sanchez added that across the entire Trinity Health system, there are more than 117,000 workers, “so you can imagine there’s a large backlog in reviewing all the final documentation.”
For those who don’t meet the deadline, “we will reach out individually to anyone who didn’t take action,” she added. “We value each and every member of our team and want to give them every possible opportunity.”
Another large Fresno hospital organization, Community Medical Centers, reported that with nine days left before the state’s Sept. 30 mandate deadline, about 85% of the staff at its facilities – Community Regional Medical Center in downtown Fresno, Clovis Community Medical Center, and the Fresno Heart & Surgical Hospital – are already in full compliance, with another 6% in the process of completing the needed steps.
Adventist Health Central Valley Network, which operates hospitals in Hanford, Tulare, Selma and Reedley, “plans to be in full compliance” with the state’s health order by Sept. 30, spokesman Brian Johnson said.
“Since the order was announced in August, our organization has held regular vaccine clinics for providers and associates,” Johnson said. “We’ve also hosted Virtual Vaccine town halls with physician specialists to answer associates’ questions about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines.”
Jordan Scott, a spokesperson for Kaiser Permanente in Fresno, said that statewide, about 87% of the health-maintenance organization’s employees have been vaccinated. Local figures for Kaiser Permanente facilities and clinics in the Fresno area were not available.
In Tulare County, Kaweah Health Medical Center reports that about 3,500 of its approximately 5,150 total employees are fully vaccinated – a little more than two-thirds of the workforce. About 700 workers have declined the vaccine, while 350 others are not subject to the health worker mandate.
Among Kaweah Health’s medical staff that numbers 553, more than 96% are fully vaccinated, while fewer than 3% have declined the vaccine, including four medical exemptions and 11 religious exemptions, said Laura Florez-McCusker, a spokesperson for the Visalia hospital organization.
When the first vaccine doses became available in December 2020, priority for the limited number of doses was given to front-line hospital workers – doctors, nurses and other hospital staff coming in direct contact with coronavirus patients. As the supplies of vaccine increased, they were made more widely available to other segments of the population in the Valley and nationwide, including emergency workers, senior citizens, teachers and child-care workers, agricultural workers and others.
Last week, Fresno County surpassed 1 million total doses of vaccine administered to residents, and over the weekend the number of residents fully vaccinated for COVID-19 overtook those who have yet to receive a shot. A person is considered “fully vaccinated” two weeks after their second dose of the two-shot Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or one shot of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson product.
In Fresno County, 46.7% of the population are now fully vaccinated, compared to 46.2% who have yet to receive even one dose. Just over 7% are partially vaccinated with one dose and awaiting their second Pfizer or Moderna shot.
Valleywide, Fresno County is the only area in which more than half of residents have gotten at least one dose of vaccine. Across the six-county region – Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced and Tulare counties – more than 1.9 million vaccine doses have been given over the past nine months.
Almost 43% of the Valley’s residents are fully vaccinated – well behind the statewide vaccination rate of almost 58%. More than half of the region’s 2.1 million residents are unvaccinated.
This story was originally published September 21, 2021 at 3:44 PM with the headline "Deadlines near for Fresno, Valley health workers to meet COVID-19 vaccine mandate."
