These hospitals finally understands that forcing employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine will be a great hassle for their business.
The University of Alabama in Birmingham is no longer requiring employees to get the Covid-19 vaccine, about one month after mandating the shot.
In a letter sent Friday, the University of Alabama in Birmingham officials said it will wait for the detailed federal guidance in order to develop a replacement vaccine policy to “ensure full compliance with federal law.”
Also, WRBC-TV reported the news, “President of the Alabama Hospital Association Dr. Don Williamson said most hospitals in the state aren’t requiring the shot right now anyway, UAB was one of few, He said hospital staff have high vaccination numbers, anywhere from 50% to 80% in different locations, which Williamson said many achieved through incentive programs.”
Williamson said, “Hospitals have successfully navigated the waters of getting people vaccinated and for the most part, they have been able to do it without mandates.”
The outlet also reported that UAB will continue to offer incentives for employees to get vaccinated.
“Because vaccines are safe, effective and a critical tool to end the pandemic, and because it is expected that federal guidelines will require the vaccine, we continue to strongly encourage those who have not been vaccinated to get a free COVID vaccine as soon as possible,” Greer said. “The voluntary $400 incentive payment available to vaccinated employees who want it remains available.”
Meanwhile, Employees from other hospitals have been forcing to get vaccinated and some have even been fired for those who refuse.
The Employees at Houston Methodist Hospital, which oversees eight hospitals, had only weeks to receive the immunization or risk being suspended or fired. The system suspended 178 workers without pay on June 7, the deadline.
And Previously a hundred and seventeen full- and part-time workers filed a case.
However, lead plaintiff Jennifer Bridges’ claim that the vaccines are “experimental and risky” was found to be untrue by U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes of Houston. Bridges’ argument that the vaccine requirement is akin to the Nazis’ medical experiments on concentration camp detainees during the Holocaust is likewise deemed “reprehensible” by the judge.
As Bridges claimed in the lawsuit, Hughes also said that a business can require workers to get a vaccine and is not coercion.
Hughes wrote, “Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else.”
The judge said, “If a worker refuses an assignment, changed office, earlier start time, or other directives, he may be properly fired. Every employment includes limits on the worker’s behavior in exchange for remuneration. That is all part of the bargain.”
The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Jared Woodfill, disagreed and vowed to file an appeal.
Woodfill said in a statement, “All of my clients continue to be committed to fighting this unjust policy.”
Woodfill added, “What is shocking is that many of my clients were on the front line treating COVID-positive patients at Texas Methodist Hospital during the height of the pandemic. As a result, many of them contracted COVID-19. As a thank you for their service and sacrifice, Methodist Hospital awards them a pink slip and sentences them to bankruptcy.”
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not fully approved the vaccines, instead of issuing only emergency use authorization. They alleged the hospital is “illegally requiring its employees to be injected with an experimental vaccine as a condition of employment.” Since the lawsuit was filed, however, the FDA has approved the Pfizer vaccine.
Fox News reported, the complaint also cited the Nuremberg Code, which “bans forced medical experimentations, again in effect arguing that the vaccine is experimental and potentially unsafe.”
Woodfill told ABC News, before the judge’s ruling; Woodfill said the hospital was just trying to make money. “To promote its business and increase profits at the expense of other health care providers and their employees’ health, defendants advertise to the public that they ‘require all employees and employed physicians to get a COVID-19 vaccine.”
Sources: Dailywire, Bulldogreports, Abcnews, Foxnews, Wbrc