Roy Exum
The need for skilled nurses in America has never been as great. The staffs at every hospital are stretched rubber-band tight and in Hamilton County (Chattanooga), it is so awful that the National Guard is being called out to “shore up our troops.” But the better trust is Chattanoooga’s largest hospital – locally owned Erlanger - is perfectly situated in an otherwise “perfect storm” and if the gambler that dwells within me, our Level 1 Trauma Center could easily have the best nursing staff in the country within 90 days.
All the hospital’s Board of Trustees need to do is shake free of the “woke generation” and announce there will be no silly vaccine mandates for house staff.
Whoa, I’m all over the vaccine. I have been a devout believer from the very first. If the fact that over 90 percent of those now hospitalized arrived unvaccinated in this raging duel with the delta variant doesn’t prove the worth of the vaccine doesn’t stir every man, woman, and child into action, I’ll pray for your health anyway because the odds of getting COVID-19 are too great to risk.
That understood, and I beg people to get the vaccine, I am a greater lover of personal freedom. No one should force another to do anything against their will. But the liberal faction would have us believe we should force the vaccine on workers, that “big daddy corporate” is true and just to callously terminate anyone who doesn’t succumb to a mandate and they could care less when some of the greatest walk out the door.
Memorial Hospital, the No. 2 health facility in the region, has already announced their rulers will run off any employee who has not been vaccinated by Nov. 1, and – brother - if I am Erlanger, Parkridge or Hutcheson, I would have already had the “Vacancy” sign aglow and be advertising, “ …and we’ll leave the light on for you.”
It is suspected that at most big hospitals about 20 percent of doctors, physicians’ assistants, and registered nurses are not vaccinated. If Memorial were to suddenly fire that many employees on a given day with the end of this COVID wave nowhere in sight, can you spell c-a-t-a-s-t-r-o-p-h-i-c? But if Erlanger could be up to speed by Nov.1 with enough fully qualified and experienced staff to open a rumored 120 empty beds, the “win-win” could be just as extraordinary.
All Erlanger needs to do is announce there will be no vaccine mandates for current or future staff. “While we strongly recommend the modern-day vaccines, this based on what we have witnessed firsthand, we also recognize the freedoms of choice. We refuse to recognize political or personal as agendas – we welcome everyone – and have complete assurance our medical staff will continue to exhibit the best protocols we can against every disease and malady. We do not believe in ‘mandates’ or unnecessary rules of any kind in the face of mankind’s suffering and, after we were established in 1899, we have grown to where we treat over half-million patients each year. And we don’t turn anyone away with treatment.
“Barring federal or state overrides, no employees will ever be subject to politically-proper mandates or unnecessary impositions. Again, we greatly recommend the current vaccines but with an equal concern for individual liberty and a commitment to healing, we will not be sidetracked nor compromised in our dedication to our mission”
Bingo!
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royexum@aol.com