Part of States Newsroom
Part of States Newsroom
Montana’s top three Republicans are asking the Biden administration to exempt the state from a federal vaccine mandate requiring staff at hospitals that receive federal funding to be vaccinated, saying the requirement would further decimate Montana’s already low health care workforce.
“Like many states across the nation, Montana is already facing labor shortages, especially in the healthcare industry, which severely threaten patient access to lifesaving medical care,” Gov. Greg Gianforte, U.S. Sen. Steve Daines and U.S. Rep. Matthew Rosendale wrote in a letter to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Wednesday. “Montana facilities cannot afford to lose another health care professional, especially when alternative measures can be implemented, such as masking and testing, to protect the safety and health of employees, patients, and visitors from COVID-19.”
On Jan. 13, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled two lower courts’ decisions and allowed the Department of Public Health and Human Services to require workers at health care centers that receive Medicare and Medicaid funds be vaccinated. But the trio of electeds say implementing the rule in Montana would be detrimental. Other legal challenges to the mandate are still being litigated but the Jan. 13 decision allows the mandate to go into effect while those cases are pending.
“As the Department turns to implementation and enforcement of the rule, we respectfully request that you consider the unique healthcare access challenges faced by rural states like Montana and exercise discretion, including issuing waivers for healthcare facilities that demonstrate a dire workforce impact from the mandate, when deciding whether to pursue enforcement actions against a facility,” the letter read.
Health care workers in Montana subjected to the mandate have until Feb. 14 to get their first dose of the vaccine and must be fully vaccinated by March 15.
The U.S. Department of Labor said the health care industry has lost 20% of its workers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and Montana is not immune. Throughout the pandemic, Montana’s health care facilities have struggled with staffing and warned in early January that the situation is even direr with the highly transmissible Omicron variant taking a grip on the state.
On Wednesday, St. Peter’s Health and Shodair Children’s Hospital said staffing shortages and increasing COVID-19 cases are hindering their ability to operate at full capacity.
“We are currently operating under contingency standards of care,” Dr. Shelly Harkins, St. Peter’s Health Regional Medical Center president and chief medical officer, said in a news release earlier this week. “Right now, we do not have the available staffing to meet the demand for inpatient beds, which is growing as we are starting to see an increase in hospitalizations due to the current COVID-19 omicron surge.”
The state recorded nearly 2,888 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, along with a 1,781 increase in active cases and 312 active hospitalizations. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 10,972 Montanans have been hospitalized by COVID-19. Between Apr. 1, 2021, and Jan. 21, 2022, unvaccinated people have accounted for 86% of hospitalizations and 78% of deaths, according to a press release from the Governor’s office.
A Department of Public Health and Human Services report released Monday said eight of Montana’s 10 major hospitals had limited bed capacity or were near capacity and that 1,729 of the state’s 2,444 hospitals beds were occupied, with COVID-19 patients taking up 331 beds.
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