Missouri hospital will require vaccine for employees as COVID-19 slams Springfield

Employees at more than 40 hospitals in Missouri, Kansas and some neighboring states will be required to get a COVID-19 vaccination, the Mercy health system announced Wednesday, making it among the few in the nation to mandate the shots.

The rule goes into effect Sept. 30 for the hospitals, which are in such cities as Springfield, Joplin and St. Louis, as well as in Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Dr. John Mohart, senior vice president of clinical services, said 95% of recent coronavirus hospitalizations in the U.S. have been people who aren’t vaccinated.

“The data is clear,” Mohart said in a news release. “Vaccination is key to saving lives.”

In the Kansas City area, major hospital systems told The Star they do not require employees to be vaccinated, with two saying they won’t consider it until the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gives the vaccines full approval. The FDA has OK’d vaccines by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson for emergency use, but full approval is pending.

Only a small number of hospitals across the country have made the vaccine mandatory, with some offering religious exemptions, Nancy Foster with the American Hospital Association told Becker’s Hospital Review, a hospital business publication.

But most association members indicated they would decide whether to require the shots based on safety and efficacy information when the FDA fully approves them, Foster said.

Mercy Hospital Springfield has been slammed by a surge of COVID-19 cases. On Wednesday, chief administrative officer Erik Frederick said the hospital had 120 COVID-19 patients, and 88% of its intensive care unit patients were on ventilators.

Less than 5% were fully vaccinated, he posted on social media.

On July 4, the hospital ran out of ventilators. Mercy hospitals in St. Louis and northwest Arkansas sent their supplies.

On Tuesday, the Springfield-Greene County Health Department reported 17 deaths between June 21 and July 4. Health officials said none were fully vaccinated.

In Mercy’s news release, officials said the health system joins more than 20 other health care organizations in requiring vaccination.

In May, guidance issued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said federal laws do not prevent an employer from requiring employees working on site to be vaccinated for COVID-19, with some caveats.

Last month, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by employees of Houston Methodist over the hospital’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for employees. The judge ruled that the health system did not violate state or federal law by requiring the shots.

In the Kansas City area, AdventHealth Shawnee Mission, where nearly 80% of employees are vaccinated, plans to pursue mandating the COVID-19 vaccine when the FDA gives full approval, “similarly to how we require an annual flu shot,” director of communications Morgan Shandler said Wednesday.

University of Kansas Health System officials, who have been encouraging employees to get vaccinated, have said they won’t consider mandating shots until the FDA gives final approval.

Other area hospitals said they strongly encourage vaccines but don’t require them, including: Saint Luke’s and HCA Midwest, which operates Research Medical Center, Overland Park Regional Medical Center and Menorah Medical Center.

Nationwide, more than 331 million vaccine doses have been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This story was originally published July 7, 2021 at 2:34 PM.

Katie Moore

The Kansas City Star

816-234-4312

Katie Moore was an enterprise and accountability reporter for The Star. She covered justice issues, including policing, prison conditions and the death penalty. She is a University of Kansas graduate and began her career as a reporter in 2015 in her hometown of Topeka, Kansas.