CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — The area’s leading health provider held a meeting Tuesday morning informing employees that the COVID-19 vaccine will be mandatory or else, they will be fired.
In the meeting, administrators told employees that the vaccine is required by next month. The first dose must be administered by December 5. If that is not done, the employee will receive a seven day suspension. If the employee does not receive their first shot within that suspension period, they will be terminated. The second dose of the vaccine must be administered by January 4.
Adena has more than 4,000 employees and includes approximately 200 physicians and 150 advanced practice providers, located at 28 practices throughout a 9-county service region.
Representatives for Adena were not immediately available to return a request for comment for this story, however, the Guardian obtained an email sent to employees by the hospital’s CEO, Jeff Graham.
“As you are likely aware, the federal government outlined a new COVID-19 vaccination rule that requires all employees of healthcare facilities that receive payments from Medicare and Medicaid to be fully vaccinated by January 4, 2022,” Graham wrote. “As a result, Adena is now in a position that we must revise our current vaccine policy to ensure we are in compliance with this new rule.”
Graham said that 55% of Adena’s 4,000 employees were vaccinated, and that the health group faces a $14,000 fine per employee who is not vaccinated.
Ohio has had 1.6 million reported COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, with 25,649 deaths.
This article was updated to clearly articulate that Adena wasn’t available to provide comment.
