Over One Third of Physicians Disagree with COVID Vaccine Mandate
While many physicians disagree with the COVID vaccine mandate, the federal government recently released a rule requiring vaccination by January 4th.
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By - The Adaptive Medical Partners (AMP) conducted survey of over 1,000 physicians and clinicians from their network to gather insight regarding the impact of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. A third of the surveyed respondents disagreed with vaccine mandates.
The federal government issued a vaccine mandate requiring vaccinations or consistent COVID-19 test of employees for all companies with 100 or more workers. Prior to the mandate, numerous health systems put their mandate in place, many of which require the vaccine.
Recently, CMS announced that all eligible health care workers at facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid programs must get the COVID-19 vaccine by January 4, 2022.
“We are aware of concerns about health care workers choosing to leave their jobs rather than be vaccinated,” the CMS agency wrote. “While we understand that there might be a certain number of [healthcare] workers who choose to do so, there is insufficient evidence to quantify and compare adverse impacts on patient and resident care associated with temporary staffing losses due to mandates and absences due to quarantine for known COVID-19 exposures and illness.”
Survey results revealed 77 percent of healthcare workers said the federal vaccine mandate will not impact their career plan, 7 percent said they will find a new job without a vaccine mandate, 3 percent said they would retire earlier due to the mandate, and 2 percent said will quit medicine entirely due to the mandate.
However, 44 percent said the vaccine mandate imposed by the federal government will increase staff turnover at their organizations.
“I received a vaccine I didn’t want to get, so that I wouldn’t be fired,” wrote a surveyed healthcare worker.
The survey also looked at the impact of the federal vaccine mandate on employee morale. It found that 43 percent of respondents believe the federal vaccine mandate will have a significantly positive impact on employee morale, 35 percent believe the vaccine mandate will have a negative impact, and 12 percent believe the vaccine mandate will not impact employee morale in any way.
“I’m vaccinated myself but do not agree with mandates,” stated a doctor from New Hampshire, who suggested a more effective solution could be, “to better educate people about the importance of [the Covid] vaccine instead of [issuing] mandates which will have negative consequences on multiple levels.”
“While physicians and clinicians are clearly largely in favor of vaccines in general, including the [COVID] vaccinations in most cases it seems, there are many clinicians who remain anti-mandate despite being pro-vaccine. The mandates are adding yet another stressful challenge to an already overworked, understaffed healthcare labor force, which is concerning,” said AMP President, David Fontenot.
