Physicians say vaccine block creates unsafe workspace environments
January 16, 2022

Employees need to feel safe in their workplace as frontline healthcare providers see hospitals and emergency department
waiting rooms fill to capacity

NASHVILLE, TN - Physicians have reacted since the Supreme Court blocked the enforcement of vaccine and testing requirements for large employers. Physicians had seen this public health measure as a powerful tool for controlling the rapid spread of the Omicron variant which is ravaging Tennessee now, straining hospital capacity and causing preventable suffering and death.

“The Supreme Court has dealt a huge blow to workplace safety,” said Dr. Amy Gordon Bono, a primary care internal medicine physician holding a Masters in Public Health. “As a primary care physician, early in the COVID pandemic, I started hearing my patients express concern about feeling safe in their workplace. That is a big reason why I advocate so strongly for aggressive COVID mitigation strategies.”

Dr. Bono continued, “Vaccination requirements create a standard in the job market - a standard that not only saves lives, but can be effective at stabilizing our economy. It’s really just good fiscal policy as well as good public health policy, and the federal government needs to use every fiscal lever they can to attach federal funding with vaccination requirements.”

The Court allowed the vaccine-testing requirement for facilities which receive federal funding from Medicare and Medicaid to stand. That ruling impacts most health care facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes.

Dr. Katrina Green, an emergency medicine physician who works in two middle Tennessee hospitals, is relieved that at least that provision is intact. “On my last shift, our waiting room was full with our own normal stream of patients as well as others who were diverted from other hospitals due to maxed out hospital capacity. Many of those patients waited in our waiting room for hours to be seen. We were administering COVID tests as rapidly as we could, and I don’t believe we got back one negative test.”

Dr. Green went on to observe, “Waiting rooms are becoming a place where you could get sick if you are not wearing a mask. This variant is so transmissible and these longer wait times are causing concern for our ability to keep our emergency department safe and adequately staffed.

“I am extremely disappointed that Governor Lee has not reinstated the State of Emergency which was in place until November,” concluded Dr. Green. “Our positive test rate is almost twice as high as it has ever been. My colleagues and I cannot fight this pandemic on our own. We need leadership at the state level, and sadly, Governor Lee is not providing it.”

Dr. Bono added, “It’s really hard to be stuck in the middle trying to follow the rules, when really the people we should be putting first are our patients, not politicians.”

Source: Forward TN