TULSA – A temporary restraining order imposed almost two months ago at the request of the state Attorney General, to prevent Ascension St. John Health System from imposing a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for its employees in Oklahoma, will remain in effect until an evidentiary hearing scheduled for January 14.
“[R]easonable cause exists” to grant Attorney General John O’Connor’s request for an emergency, temporary restraining order “based on the grounds” outlined in his lawsuit filed here in November, Presiding Tulsa County District Judge William LaFortune ruled.
On November 4, 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued an Interim Final Rule requiring most Medicare and Medicaid certified providers and suppliers to vaccinate staff members within 60 days.
Ascension mandated that all of its healthcare employees nationwide receive a COVID-19 vaccine by November 12, 2021, or they would be suspended and then dismissed on January 4, 2022.
Ascension, whose headquarters is in St. Louis, Mo., operates hospitals and healthcare facilities in 19 states, including Oklahoma, and the District of Columbia.
Ascension is “one of the largest Catholic health care systems in the United States,” O’Connor wrote in his pleading. Ascension has more than 150,000 associates and 40,000 aligned healthcare providers, he said. In the Tulsa area alone, Ascension operates dozens of hospitals, clinics, and specialty care facilities, including the St. John Medical Center.
Both sides agreed to a temporary cease-fire on November 30 and LaFortune gave both parties time to file legal briefs in the case.
The Attorney General, by and through his Office of Civil Rights Enforcement, alleges that Ascension is engaged in “unlawful religious and disability discrimination” against employees who have requested religious or medical exemptions from Ascension’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
O’Connor claims Ascension’s “purported exemption request and evaluation process” is actually “nothing but a sham and a pretext for outright religious discrimination.”
Ascension countered that research has shown that infections among patients hospitalized with COVID-19 “can be attributed to health care-associated transmission.”
Enjoining Ascension St. John from taking “appropriate action” to address the COVID-19 pandemic could potentially “visit substantial harm on the public,” including Ascension’s patients, employees and visitors.
“When it comes to health care workers, the public interest in safeguarding individuals against COVID-19 is recognized as ‘paramount’,” Ascension asserted.
Ascension also noted that on October 29, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court denied emergency relief to a constitutional challenge that healthcare associates in Maine brought against the state’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement and limits placed on requests for religious accommodation.
More than 100,000 Americans were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Tuesday, USA TODAY reported.
Oklahoma had 27,820 active coronavirus cases on Tuesday, and the death toll in this state from the disease numbered 12,539 as of Wednesday, according to the State Health Department.