LAWTON – Employees at Comanche County Memorial Hospital have been told they must receive the full COVID-19 vaccine no later than January 4, according to an email from Chief Executive Officer Brent Smith.
Staff members still have the ability to apply for a medical or religious waiver, but those who do not will be required to get the first Moderna or Pfizer shot by Dec. 5, the email states. The employees who prefer the Johnson & Johnson one-dose shot must have received it by Dec. 5, the email states.
Smith wrote in the email that the mandate comes directly from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which is at the center of several legal challenges by at least two dozen states who oppose President Joe Biden’s mandate for large private companies, health care workers and government employees.
“The Hospital is developing a policy to comply with the CMS mandate, and we expect to have it ready next week. For now, I am letting you know that the Policy will require that all staff be vaccinated by January 4, 2022, with a requirement that the first dose of Moderna or Pfizer (or the single dose of Johnson & Johnson) be received by December 5, 2021, unless the staff member has submitted and been approved for a religious or medical exemption by the Hospital,” Smith wrote in the email.
The hospital’s policy will include information about who is affected, which are all staff, trainees, physicians, volunteers and others who have contact with patients or other staff, the process for applying for exemptions, precautions that will be required for staff who have been approved for exemptions and other requirements of the CMS mandate.
Several states, including Oklahoma, have filed lawsuits against the federal government challenging the mandate in at least two legal challenges. However, Smith acknowledged in the email that CCMH is “still required to proceed with implementing it (mandate)” despite the court action.
Smith wrote in the email that some staff members “will have concerns” about the policy. “However, the Hospital must comply with the CMS mandate or risk its Medicare and Medicaid certification,” he wrote.
Numerous CCMH employees, particularly nurses and physicians, have already been vaccinated, hospital spokeswoman Nicole Jolly said in a previous interview.
The lawsuits have been filed in four federal appeals courts over President Biden’s requirement that all companies with more than 100 employees mandate COVID-19 vaccines for their staff or implement weekly testing.
Oklahoma filed in the Sixth Circuit along with Idaho, Kansas, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.
Oklahoma is among a group of states who filed a new lawsuit asking a federal court to stop the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for health care workers. That lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
"I will not tolerate the Biden administration threatening Oklahoma health care workers with their jobs after they have fearlessly braved the pandemic," Oklahoma Attorney General John O'Connor said in a prepared statement. "Oklahoma is already suffering from staffing shortages, and this mandate will only worsen it, especially in rural Oklahoma."
O’Connor and the other attorneys general involved in the Louisiana case claim the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ COVID-19 vaccine mandate on facilities that receive federal funding for treating patients exceeds the agency's statutory authority and violates the Social Security Act's prohibition on regulations that control the hiring and firing of health care workers. The statement also claims the mandate violates other federal laws.