South Florida healthcare giant mandating COVID vaccines for workers and volunteers
Baptist Health of South Florida, the region’s largest healthcare organization, announced Monday that all employees, medical staff and volunteers will need to get the COVID-19 vaccine by Oct. 31.
“The last year and a half has challenged us all, and our community, in ways that we could have never imagined before. Our frontline caregivers continue to feel the strain of COVID-19 surges and continue to selflessly dedicate themselves to caring for our community, and we are grateful,” Baptist Health said in a statement. “We owe it to everyone who is on the front lines to do all we can to fight, and stop, this virus — and we know vaccination is the best way to do that.”
Baptist has 11 hospitals, including the flagship in Kendall, and nearly 24,000 employees, including 4,000 physicians. The healthcare giant also has 100 outpatient centers, urgent care facilities and physician practices across South Florida, and runs two hospitals in the Florida Keys.
It joins Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in the South Miami area and Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, which was the first South Florida hospital to mandate vaccinations for employees. The Department of Veteran Affairs is also requiring healthcare workers, including physicians, dentists, registered nurses and physician assistants to get the vaccine. The mandate is in place at the Miami VA Healthcare System.
Baptist said it decided to require vaccinations because it has seen — through published scientific studies and firsthand at its own hospitals — that COVID shots are safe and extremely effective in preventing serious illness and death from the disease.
The hospital also said that while breakthrough infections sometimes happen, “it is clear that vaccinated people have significantly better outcomes.” A breakthrough infection is when vaccinated people fall ill with COVID-19.
Other South Florida hospitals, including Broward Health, strongly encourage vaccinations but are not requiring them. Florida hospital administrators are struggling with how to motivate more employees to take the vaccine and are reluctant to mandate vaccines over concerns that they will lose employees to hospitals that don’t require the shot.
Jackson Health System, Miami-Dade County’s public hospital network, is not mandating employee vaccinations. Instead, it’s offering a $150 reward to any employee who gets a shot by Sept. 30.
Jackson has also issued new policies barring unvaccinated workers from eating or drinking inside any Jackson facility, requiring them to wear an N-95 respirator mask at all times indoors and prohibiting them from entering campus dining rooms, coffee shops and cafeterias.
This story was originally published August 16, 2021 at 1:33 PM.
