How many Fresno-area hospital workers met the deadline to get their COVID vaccines?
In Fresno County and across California, health care workers faced a state-imposed deadline of Sept. 30 to show that they were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, or have an approved exemption for medical or religious reasons.
For the approximately 13,000 people who work at hospitals throughout Fresno County, failure to do so carries the potential of losing their jobs.
Already, some area hospitals report that employees who didn’t meet the deadline have been placed on administrative leave, but have a chance to catch up on their shots. Others have given employees more time to comply, but those workers face termination if they still don’t get vaccinated.
Within Community Medical Centers, Fresno County’ s largest hospital organization, “99% of our employees are compliant with the vaccine/exemption order or are in the process of finalizing their vaccine,” said Michelle Von Tersch, a senior vice president.
Community employs more than 8,800 people and has more than 1,400 affiliated doctors at its facilities: Community Regional Medical Center in downtown Fresno, Clovis Community Medical Center and the Fresno Heart & Surgical Hospital in northeast Fresno.
“Our employees have received numerous communications about compliance with the vaccine mandate as well as our corrective action process,” Von Tersch said. “On Oct. 1, noncompliant employees received a written warning and were given another 30 days to become compliant.”
Those who are not fully vaccinated by Nov. 1 will be put on leave, but for another 30 days will be eligible for reinstatement if they get their shots. “Anyone who remains out of compliance on Nov. 30 will be terminated,” Von Tersch said.
Saint Agnes Medical Center in northeast Fresno has about 2,900 employees, most of whom were vaccinated ahead of a Sept. 20 deadline set by the hospital’s parent company, Michigan-based Trinity Health.
At that time, all but 4% of the Saint Agnes employees had gotten their shots, providing a degree of flexibility to those who had yet to be vaccinated, said Kelley Sanchez, a hospital spokesperson.
“We gave our colleagues who had not taken action (to get vaccinated or submit a medical or religious exemption) a grace period,” Sanchez said this week. “They have until Oct. 15 to get at least the first dose of a two-part vaccine or one dose of (the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine).”
“If action is still not taken, (Human Resources) will advise the colleague that the next step is ending employment.”
Saint Agnes’ chief medical officer, Dr. Walter Egerton, said earlier this year he fully supported the state’s vaccination mandate for health care workers.
“I believe it is essential,” he said. “First and foremost, the duty of health care providers is to keep our community safe, which means keeping ourselves safe and keeping our patients safe.”
“We know by science and by what we’ve seen so far that vaccinations for COVID-19 are the best way available to stem this pandemic,” Egerton said. Requiring employees’ proof of vaccines, he added, “is not an unreasonable request on our part.”
The coronavirus pandemic has dealt a dual blow to hospitals in Fresno and the Central Valley. At times, hundreds of nurses, technicians and other hospital staff have missed work because they’ve either been infected with COVID-19 or had to isolate because they were exposed to the virus.
In many instances, those employee absences have come just as hospitals experienced the strain of large numbers of coronavirus patients in their emergency departments, acute-care beds and intensive-care units.
Community Medical Centers reported Wednesday that it had 106 workers in self-isolation, including 52 infected with the virus.
Kaiser Permanente began putting employees on unpaid leave on Friday if they had not provided proof of vaccination or had an approved exemption, said Christian Maisner, the organization’s senior vice president and chief human resources officer.
Kaiser Permanente employs more than 2,800 employees and physicians at its 169-bed hospital in northeast Fresno and in medical offices in Fresno, Madera, Kings and Tulare counties. But the organization declined to provide information on local compliance rates with the Sept. 30 vaccination deadline.
“Nearly 98% of our active employees (across the broader organization) have responded to our request” to meet the company’s deadline, Maisner said. “The remaining 2% of these employees have been placed on unpaid administrative leave as of Oct. 1 and will have until Dec. 1, 2021, to receive their vaccination and return to work.”
“We hope none of our employees will choose to leave their jobs rather than be vaccinated, but we won’t know with certainty until then,” he added.
Outside of Fresno, nurses and staff at smaller hospitals also faced the same Sept. 30 deadline for vaccinations.
Adventist Health Central Valley Network, which operates hospitals in Hanford, Tulare, Selma and Reedley as well as medical offices in other Valley towns, had about 98% of its employees vaccinated or exempted as of Tuesday morning, spokesperson Brian Johnson said.
“A very small number of associates who did not submit proof of vaccination or obtain a fully approved exemption by Sept. 30 were placed on administrative leave on Oct. 1,” Johnson said. Adventist’s HR and employee health departments “are working diligently to support these associates, the majority of whom work occasionally.
“If the show proof of vaccination or exemption by Oct. 15, they will be reinstated,” Johnson added. “Otherwise, they will have voluntarily resigned from their position.”
In Visalia, Kaweah Health Medical Center reported last month that 96% of its medical staff – more than 530 out of 553 people – were fully vaccinated, while fewer than 3% had declined shots, including four with medical exemptions and 11 religious exemptions.
Out of Kaweah Health’s total staff of about 5,100 employees at its hospital and other clinics and offices, more than two-thirds were fully vaccinated as of Sept. 20. The total includes hundreds of workers to whom the vaccine mandate does not apply.
Almost 50 Kaweah Health employees are currently infected with COVID-19 as of this week, the hospital reported, and more than 1,400 workers have tested positive for the virus at some point over the past 19 months, according to Kaweah Health’s data dashboard.
This story was originally published October 6, 2021 at 12:35 PM with the headline "How many Fresno-area hospital workers met the deadline to get their COVID vaccines?."
