A group of Knox Community Hospital (KCH) employees who staged a brief protest during breaks from their jobs was pleased to learn that the hospital would not mandate COVID-19 vaccinations.
The hospital announced on Wednesday that it would require staff to either be vaccinated for COVID-19 or participate in routine COVID testing and enhanced adherence to personal protective equipment, such as wearing N95 masks.
“This approach, also being adopted by other area hospitals, is considered appropriate and effective in reducing the possibility of spread of the virus while ensuring the organization’s ability to provide care for patients,” the hospital statement said.
A significant portion of the hospital team has received a COVID-19 vaccination, KCH said. The best option now to address the pandemic is COVID vaccination, the statement said.
“We also acknowledge that there are issues which continue to cause some in the health-care workforce, like many in the general public, to hesitate about this very personal vaccination decision,” the hospital said.
One of the hospital employees who said he participated in the protest said this was good progress. Since vaccinations will not be mandated, they can keep their jobs and take care of the patients they have, said the employee, who wished to remain anonymous.
“It's not threatening us to lose our job because of vaccination,” he said.
Employees who took part in the protest only did it during their lunch break or last break of the workday. They didn’t abandon their job for the protest, he said.
Hospital employees want to continue helping the sick and vulnerable. The hospital’s decision lets them continue doing that while keeping the freedom to choose.
“Instead of vaccinated, or not vaccinated, we work together as a team as a group. The patients now that we have, whether they have COVID or not, we are treating them the same ... we don't discriminate them. So there's no real point of segregating us with vaccinated or not vaccinated,” the employee said.
He said back in August 2020 he got sick with COVID-19. But after he got better, he returned to work.
Side effects and questions about the vaccines seen on the news scares people, and they aren’t fully confident of the vaccine, he said.
“Whoever wants to get vaccinated, we are happy to say, 'Go ahead, we're not stopping you,'” he said.
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