St. Francis hospital in Topeka adopts vaccine requirement; Stormont Vail's mandate not to blame for shortage
Jason Alatidd
The St. Francis hospital in Topeka will require all staff to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, officials publicly announced this week.
"After a great deal of thoughtful consideration, we announced to our staff last week that we will be joining The University of Kansas Health System in requiring all employees, physicians, students, volunteers, vendors and anyone working in our facilities to be fully vaccinated effective December 1, 2021," hospital officials said in a Tuesday COVID-19 dashboard report.
While the KU health system previously announced its staff would have to get vaccinated, the St. Francis campus hadn't made such a mandate.
The local hospital requirement comes after President Joe Biden's announced a federal vaccine mandate for health care workers earlier this month.
Kansas Republican politicians have been critical of the federal mandate, warning that it could worsen the staffing shortage.
At Stormont Vail, where a vaccine mandate was announced before Biden's made his announcement, hospital CEO Robert Kenagy has said the staffing shortage isn't due to the mandate. The requirement goes into effect Oct. 31,which is the same deadline as Stormont Vail's annual flu shot requirement.
"The vast majority of our shortages are the result of nursing staff leaving for travel nursing positions, retirements and illness of team members or family members," Kenagy said in a Sept. 15 daily update. "These are not staff members who have resigned because of the vaccine requirement for team members and medical staff."
The health system had 53 team members off work that day because they were positive with COVID-19.
As of that day, the hospital had 122 registered nurse position openings, four LPN openings and 55 patient care technician open positions. The clinics had 21 RN openings, 30 LPN openings and 24 medical assistant openings.
Kenagy said the critical staffing shortages "impact our ability to care for patients." Transferring patients is difficult across the region because of similar staffing issues elsewhere.
"We have already put into place critical staffing incentives and processes, and are continuing to develop additional measures to help us take the next patient," he said.
State officials have allocated $50 million in federal COVID-19 aid to nurse bonuses designed to retain workers amid the pandemic surge.
More:‘We need you in Kansas’: Officials finally approve rules for $50 million nurse bonus program
Gov. Laura Kelly has focused on increasing vaccinations without mandates. On Thursday, she announced a testimonial campaign to encourage COVID-19 vaccinations. The campaign will be on television, digital media and radio through the end of the year.
"We all have a role to play in protecting our communities and preventing the spread of COVID-19 as the Delta variant continues to cause death and destruction across the state," Kelly said in a statement. "The spike we are seeing in COVID-19 hospitalizations, including in children and babies, is being driven by those who are unvaccinated.
"We hope that this campaign will encourage those who are skeptical to get answers to their questions and do their part to keep our families, friends, and loved ones safe."
Kansas Department of Health and Environment COVID rankings have Shawnee County as 11th-lowest risk of 105 counties in the state. While Shawnee County has the sixth-best vaccination rate, the case rate ranks 54th and the amount of testing performed ranks 32nd.
The highly contagious delta variant is contributing to the high rates. KDHE data show that 100% of Shawnee County specimens collected in the past month for genomic sequencing turned out to be delta.
The Shawnee County Health Department's community indicator report, released Thursday with data through Saturday, showed modest decreases in new cases and the positive test rate. However, the hospital stress level remained high and unchanged.
Over the past week, there were 527 new cases and a positive test rate of 7%. Those are down from 663 new cases and 8.6% positivity the previous week.