‘Why the hell did we do that?’: How unique Oregon law prevents COVID-19 vaccine mandates for health care work - OregonLive

In Oregon and across the country, a growing segment of health care workers are calling for mandatory vaccinations for their colleagues to ensure COVID-19 doesn’t spread among staff members or patients.

Last Tuesday, multiple major health organizations declared health care workers should have to get COVID-19 shots.

Oregon appears to be the only state in the country that explicitly prohibits health care organizations from mandating vaccinations for workers.

In today’s world, the law likely endangers health care workers who encounter COVID-19 patients, he said.

Willis is perplexed that an Oregon law bars employers from mandating that health care workers get vaccinated.

COVID-19 vaccinations have been available for health care workers for seven full months, yet uptake among some remains remarkably low.

Dorit Reiss, a law professor and vaccine expert at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, in San Francisco, has reviewed laws and executive orders relating to COVID-19 vaccine mandates in all 50 states, and found that only in Oregon are health care workers protected from losing their jobs if they refuse to get vaccinated.

The law prohibits employers from making vaccinations mandatory, saying licensed health care workers and health care facility employees “shall not be required as a condition of work to be immunized” unless other state or federal laws or regulations require a vaccine.

While vaccinations across the entire population will be key to ending the COVID-19 pandemic and reducing associated health risks, immunizing staff in hospitals and other health care settings is particularly important, experts said.

Health care workers who refuse to get vaccinated and later become infected and sick could leave hospitals understaffed, experts said.

“Health care workers are there to protect your health, not put it at risk,” Willis said.

Nothing in federal law prohibits employer-mandated vaccinations for health care workers.

Numerous national health care groups joined forces this month to say health care providers should mandate that their employees get vaccinated against COVID-19, citing research showing the dramatic success of similar mandates for flu shots.

The Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems joined the push, saying it supports a change in Oregon policy to allow mandatory vaccinations of health care workers.

Nearly nine in 10 medical doctors are vaccinated for COVID-19, according to the Oregon Health Authority, and 94% of dentists.

The state’s chief health agency, the Oregon Health Authority, acknowledged there’s a problem with low vaccination rates among Oregon’s health care workforce.

While health care workers aren’t the only ones at risk of infection, exposure to COVID-19 is “definitely part of the work that they do,” Oregon’s Chief Medical Officer Dr.

Providence Health & Services said it doesn’t know for sure how many of its workers have been inoculated because a COVID-19 shot can’t be a condition of employment.

Legacy Health said more than 84% of its employees have received COVID-19 shots, and that those who decline must fill out a form acknowledging their risk of exposure at work.

Kaiser Permanente said the “majority” of its frontline health care workers who have been offered the vaccine accepted it, though the health system declined to provide a rate.

Oregon Health & Science University said about three in four of its staff and students have been immunized.

While the federal government recommends that health care workers get vaccinated, it hasn’t yet made that a mandate.

The Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, which issued its statement this week a day after the national push among health care organizations, had no “legislative conversation” in the last session to advocate for a change to the law, spokesman Dave Northfield said in a text message, and no bills targeting the law were introduced.

Willis is perplexed that an Oregon law bars employers from mandating that health care workers get vaccinated.

But it could issue a statewide mandate that all health care employers require that their staff be vaccinated, which the hospital association said it is not advocating for.

No organization has asked the health authority to pursue a statewide requirement, spokesman Robb Cowie said, though the agency is all ears.

Oregon Health & Science University is implementing a COVID-19 vaccination requirement starting Sept.

But whether a health care worker is vaccinated won’t affect patient well-being, White said in an email.

Ansu Drammeh, a registered nurse who has been on the frontline fighting coronavirus for the last 10 months, was the first person to receive the vaccine at Oregon Health and Science University Wednesday, Dec.16, 2020.