PROVIDENCE – Amid serious staffing shortages, top officials from Rhode Island’s two largest hospital companies both said they are considering the possibility of bringing back employees who refused to comply with the COVID-19 vaccination requirement.
Responding to a question posed during the Providence Business News’ Spring 2022 Health Care Summit held on Wednesday morning, inquiring about whether vaccine holdouts would be welcomed back, both Lifespan Corp. CEO Dr. Timothy J. Babineau and Care New England Health System Executive Chief of Medicine Dr. Raymond O. Powrie didn’t rule it out.
“We’re evaluating that,” Babineau said. “We have not made any decision around the vaccine requirements. We’re trying, and I think we said this morning, to be as flexible as possible. We’re pretty rigid in the way we have run our business for 30 or 40 years, and one of the things we’ve figured out, in addition to rebuilding the workforce, we need to rebuild the care delivery model.”
This comes as Lifespan, which operates Rhode Island Hospital, The Miriam Hospital, Hasbro Children’s Hospital and other facilities, struggles with 2,700 job vacancies. Lifespan, which Babineau said typically has 700 to 750 job vacancies among the roughly 17,000 positions within the company, has attributed its large number of openings mostly to attrition resulting from “burnout” during the pandemic and some employees seeking higher paying jobs that have been offered during the COVID-19 crisis by traveling nursing agencies.
Lifespan said in December last year that it lost 200 employees because they refused to comply with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, after previously stating that it was in the process of terminating 400 employees who had not been vaccinated on Oct. 1 when the R.I. Department of Health imposed the directive.
Babineau said Lifespan’s high job vacancy rate will likely be a long-term problem when it comes to nurses.
“We will never ever, ever again have enough nurses. Never,” said Babineau, speaking before a group of 150 health care industry leaders who gathered at the Providence Marriott Downtown. “I hope I’m wrong. But at least not for the next decade.”
Care New England said in October last year that roughly 95% of its workforce of nearly 8,000 were vaccinated, with between 200 and 300 employees who declined to get the shot.
The R.I. Department of Health announced in late February that it’s proposing new regulations allowing health care workers who are not vaccinated for COVID-19 to go to work, so long as they wear an N95 mask when transmission rates in Rhode Island are “substantial,” meaning 50 cases or more per 100,000 people in the state per week. The state’s vaccination requirements for employees in health care facilities in Rhode Island expired on March 12, said Joseph Wendelken, a spokesperson for the R.I. Department of Health.
Care New England said recently that it is now trying to fill 983 positions at its facilities, including Women & Infants Hospital, Butler Hospital, Kent County Memorial Hospital and others.
Powrie said he believes the vaccine mandate actually helped Care New England retain staff, as vaccinated workers would not want to continue working in an environment with unvaccinated colleagues. But Powrie also said the company is thinking about the potential of bringing back unvaccinated employees.
“We struggle with this,” Powrie said. “I struggle with the idea of what that means for patients. … We’re thinking it through. We haven’t made all final decisions. But in general I feel a strong need to stand by those workers who got the vaccines at a time of crisis and made sure they were there for us; and try to educate, work with and understand the perspectives of those who don’t.”
A spokesperson for the United Nurses and Allied Professionals, which represents 7,000 nurses and health professionals in the state, said the organization continues to stand by vaccination requirements for hospital employees in Rhode Island. UNAP said it doesn’t have an exact number, but the union “lost very few members” due to the mandate.
“The pandemic is not over, as we’ve seen with the new omicron variant, and we still have COVID patients in our hospitals,” said Brad Dufault, a spokesperson for UNAP. “We must continue to ensure our hospitals are safe for patients and healthcare workers, and we urge all Rhode Islanders to get vaccinated and boosted in an effort to prevent another surge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.”
Powrie said it would be unprecedented to exempt workers from vaccination requirements.
“There isn’t for the past 100 years a communicable disease for which there is a safe, effective vaccine that we haven’t largely required health care workers to participate in receiving on behalf of our patients,” Powrie said. “Health care has specific and unique obligations that are distinct from other businesses. People come to us at their most vulnerable times in their lives. … I’m thankful for the vast majority of our workers who chose to be there for their patients.”
Updated vaccination information provided from the R.I. Department of Health.
Marc Larocque is a PBN staff writer. Contact him at Larocque@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter @LaRockPBN.
