One of Florida’s largest healthcare providers, AdventHealth, has ended their COVID vaccine mandate for employees. The healthcare network cited the recent federal court ruling to block the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) vaccine mandate.
“Due to the recent decisions by the federal courts to block the CMS vaccine mandate, we are suspending all vaccination requirements of our COVID-19 vaccination policy,” said Neil J. Finkler, Chief Clinical Officer at AdventHealth Central Florida Division, in a letter addressed to colleagues. “All workforce members who are employed, performing tasks or providing services for AdventHealth are not required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, or to have received an approved exemption.”
BREAKING: One of Florida’s biggest hospital systems has ended all vaccine mandates
Advent Health will no longer require its 83,000 employees to be vaccinated against Covid. pic.twitter.com/GXKnEwteaZ
— Andrea Jackson FOX 35 📺🇺🇸 (@AJacksonTV) December 5, 2021
However, according to the same letter, employees will still be required to disclose their vaccination status to their “medical staff office.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) office released a statement offering their support to AdventHealth’s decision.
“We welcome AdventHealth’s decision to comply with state law to protect Floridians’ jobs and to ensure our state’s healthcare system can continue functioning smoothly,” DeSantis’ office said.
DeSantis has stood opposed to vaccine mandates only, and signed legislation after a special session requiring Florida businesses to provide alternatives for employees rather than being forced to take the shot.
“I told Floridians that we would protect their jobs and today we made that the law,” said DeSantis in an official statement. “Nobody should lose their job due to heavy-handed COVID mandates and we had a responsibility to protect the livelihoods of the people of Florida. I’m thankful to the Florida Legislature for joining me in standing up for freedom.”
AdventHealth’s decision comes even after a Florida judge recently rejected the state’s request to overturn a vaccine mandate for Florida’s healthcare industry. U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers issued the order last week that, at the time, the CMS mandate did not “usurp the state’s police power to broadly regulate for the common good.”
“In this instance, the safety of Medicare and Medicaid patients and staff administering the program throughout this pandemic, which has left hundreds of thousands of people dead, and the need to slow the spread of the virus, are greatly enhanced by virtue of the COVID-19 vaccine, according (to) the medical and public health science,” Rodgers wrote. “This public safety interest is especially compelling within the context of health care facilities, which are charged with protecting vulnerable patients participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, and thus weighs heavily on the side of denying injunctive relief.”
Another Florida healthcare provider, like Orlando Health, said to WESH Orlando they will “review the guidelines regarding vaccination requirements and take appropriate steps.”
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Grant Holcomb is a reporter at the Florida Capital Star and the Star News Network. Follow Grant on Twitter and direct message tips.
Photo “AdventHealth Medical Team” by AdventHealth.
