Most Virginia Hospitals and Nursing Homes Don’t Require COVID-19 Vaccines for Their Employees

For the third time in just over a year, Ballad Health is suspending many of its elective surgeries, citing a new wave of coronavirus cases that have left its hospitals overwhelmed.

While serious infections have increased throughout the area, driven by low vaccination rates and the aggressive Delta variant, system administrators begged for more residents to get vaccinated. But so far Ballad – which serves much of southwestern Virginia and northeastern Tennessee – has avoided requiring the snapshots for its own workers.

“Of course we’ve been cheering it on since early December, when they became available,” said Lisa Smithgall, chief executive officer of health system nursing. “And we continue to foster communication on an ongoing basis. But to date, we don’t have a vaccine mandate for our team members. “

Ballad is far from the only one. While some large hospital systems in Virginia have introduced vaccine requirements for employees, including Inova in Northern Virginia, VCU Health in Richmond, and Valley Health in the northwestern state, the majority of the approximately 27 systems Health Centers of Virginia currently do not require vaccinations for their employees. . These include major players such as Sentara, HCA and Bon Secours, which together operate more than two dozen hospitals across the state.

The same is true for many long-term care facilities in Virginia, which account for nearly 30% of outbreaks and about 36% of all deaths from COVID-19, according to data from the Department of Health of the United States. State. Neither LeadingAge Virginia nor the Virginia Health Care Association-Virginia Center for Assisted Living, which represents hundreds of nursing homes and assisted living facilities across the state, could say how many of their members have adopted the policies.

But Dr Jim Wright, medical director of Westminster Canterbury and Our Lady of Hope in Richmond, said employee vaccine needs were still scarce in much of the industry.

“In conversations with other medical directors, vaccine mandates are definitely in the minority in nursing homes in Virginia,” he said. “Westminster Canterbury, for example, is one of the only establishments I have heard of recently that has this requirement in place. “

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