2B — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
HOME & LIVING
TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2021
Vaccine reluctance even affects health workers
Sandi Doughton
The Seattle Times
SEATTLE — After a hor-
rifi c onslaught of COVID-19
killed the majority of residents
at a small nursing home in
Grant County, Washington,
facility director Erica Gaertner
couldn’t wait to roll up her
sleeve when the fi rst vaccines
rolled out.
“I thought, naively I sup-
pose, that everybody else
would just fall in line,” she
said. “But here I sit with less
than 50% of my staff vacci-
nated.”
Gaertner, who hasn’t fully
recovered from her own bout
with the novel coronavirus,
organized three on-site vac-
cination clinics at McKay
Healthcare & Rehab in the
Central Washington town of
Soap Lake. She had one-on-
one conversations with every
reluctant staffer. Still, when
Gaertner confi ded to her
management team that she
would mandate the vaccine if
she could, many threatened
to quit.
“The reality is that if I say:
‘You will all get the vaccine or
else you won’t be able to work
here,’ I could lose half my staff
and I wouldn’t be able to keep
the doors open for even a day,”
she said.
Despite being fi rst in the
nation to qualify for COVID-19
vaccination, health care work-
ers in hospitals, long-term care
facilities and other settings
haven’t uniformly rushed to
take advantage of their posi-
tion in the queue.
No statewide fi gures are
available for Washington, but
a Kaiser Family Foundation/
Washington Post poll found
slightly more than half of
front-line health workers
across the country were vac-
cinated as of early March. An-
other 19% said they planned to
get the shots. Twelve percent
describe themselves as unde-
cided, while more than 1 in 6
— 18% — aren’t interested.
“I think everybody in health
care, at least in the leadership
ranks, was surprised we didn’t
see 95% of our people go out
and get vaccinated,” said Dr.
David Knoepfl er, chief medical
offi cer for Overlake Medical
Center & Clinics in Bellevue.
Informal reports from
hospitals across Washington
over the past two months
suggest an uptake rate of 60%
to 70%, with the highest levels
among physicians and among
staff who cared for COVID-19
patients, said Cassie Sauer,
president and CEO of the
Washington State Hospital
Association.
For skilled-nursing and
assisted-living organizations,
there’s a distinct geographic
divide, said Robin Dale, presi-
dent and CEO of the Washing-
ton Health Care Association.
West of the Cascades, between
60% and 90% of staff at most
facilities are vaccinated. On
the east side of the state, rates
as low as 30% are not uncom-
mon.
The concerns raised by
JERK
Continued from Page 1B
Yield 2 servings
Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times-TNS
Keith Jackson, a dishwasher at Aljoya Thornton Place, an assisted living facility in
North Seattle has wrestled with the decision to get vaccinated but fi nally did to protect
his mother. The photo was taken Thursday, April 8, 2021.
“I think everybody in
health care, at least in
the leadership ranks, was
surprised we didn’t see
95% of our people go out
and get vaccinated.”
— Dr. David Knoepfl er, chief
medical offi cer, Overlake
Medical Center & Clinics,
Bellevue, Washington
vaccine-wary medical work-
ers aren’t unique and mostly
revolve around safety. The
rare clotting problems that led
the U.S. to temporarily halt
administration of the Johnson
& Johnson one-shot vaccine
last week, coupled with similar
concerns about the AstraZene-
ca vaccine in Europe and other
parts of the world, are sure to
add to those fears.
“It literally makes my job
that much more diffi cult in
trying to persuade my staff,
residents and community to
take any vaccine,” Gaertner
said.
Rather than mandate the
shots — which raises legal
questions since none has full
FDA approval yet — most
organizations are trying to win
their workers over through
educational outreach, Q&A
sessions and role-modeling.
“The quickest way to get
somebody to close their mind
is to make demands,” said
Knoepfl er. Name-calling
doesn’t help either. Knoepfl er
never refers to reluctant staff
as “vaccine-deniers,” preferring
the term “defer-ers.”
It’s also important to
acknowledge the many
unknowns about the new
vaccines, including uncertainty
over how long protection will
last and the lack of long-term
safety data, he said.
Overlake’s approach is to
keep chipping away at the re-
sistance with regular updates
and briefi ngs on new evidence.
In emails, telephone calls and
in-person chats, Knoepfl er
poses open-ended questions so
employees can express their
uncertainties. When he can, he
provides answers.
1/2 cup long-grain white rice
1 cup lite canned coconut milk
1/4 cup water
1 cup drained canned
pinto beans
2 scallions, sliced
(about 1/3 cup)
Salt and freshly ground
black pepper
Per serving: 226 calories
(33% from fat), 8.2 g fat
(1.5 g saturated, 4.2 g
monounsaturated), 108 mg
cholesterol, 35.6 g protein, 3
Place rice, coconut milk
g carbohydrates, no fi ber, 230
mg sodium. and water in a small sauce-
pan and bring to a simmer.
Cover with a lid and simmer
10 minutes. Add the beans
and continue to simmer 5
Recipe by Linda Gassenheimer minutes or until the rice is
COCONUT RICE AND
BEANS
“There is not a single day at
this institution where we don’t
discuss the importance of vac-
cination at every staff meeting,
in every newsletter,” he said.
About 70% of Overlake’s
3,500 employees have received
the shots as of early April.
Among them is Brandy Slade,
41, a registered nurse and
director of medical surgical
nursing services and clinical
education, who initially leaned
toward the “no thank you”
camp.
Not only was she suspi-
cious of vaccines developed on
a “warp speed” timeline, but
she’d also experienced a past
bad reaction to the fl u vaccine,
with body aches that persisted
for months.
Slade’s change of heart
started with a personal
tragedy: Her 53-year-old aunt
contracted the coronavirus and
died within two weeks. “That
was my biggest eye-opener,”
Slade said.
She was also impressed by
anecdotal evidence shared in a
safety meeting: The experience
of a vaccinated colleague who
never got sick despite caring
for her stricken husband and
kids.
But Slade still harbored
misgivings.
“I asked a lot of questions
of friends and colleagues who
already had it, and truly lis-
tened to their answers without
any judgment of my own,” she
said. Discussions with a staff
pharmacist helped allay her
concerns about messenger
RNA technology used in the
Pfi zer and Moderna vaccines
and provided the fi nal nudge
she needed to get to “yes.”
“I just realized that the
risk of catching this virus and
potentially dying, or passing
it on to a loved one who could
potentially die, outweighed my
fears.”
For Keith Jackson, the
decision to get vaccinated was
also a gradual process. At 27,
he wasn’t very worried about
dying from COVID-19. But his
job as a dishwasher at Alijoya
Thornton Place, an Era Living
assisted-living community in
cooked through. If there is
still some liquid, remove the
lid and boil rapidly for a min-
ute or two until it is absorbed.
Remove from heat, sprinkle
scallions on top and add salt
and pepper to taste.
Makes 2 servings.
Per serving: 348 calories
(20% from fat), 7.8 g fat
(6.3 g saturated, 0.2 g
monounsaturated), no
cholesterol, 10.6 g protein,
59.3 g carbohydrates, 6.5 g
fi ber, 132 mg sodium.
North Seattle, brought him
in contact with vulnerable
residents.
He asked his naturopath
about the vaccines and got
a disturbing answer about
possible allergic reactions.
Conspiracy-minded friends
also raised doubts, fanned by
social media.
“It was really mind-melting
to me,” Jackson said. “I didn’t
know who to believe or who to
talk to.”
Videos of Dr. Anthony Fauci,
who he trusts, helped. But the
clincher was a conversation
with his building supervi-
sor. She got the vaccine even
though she was nursing and
worried — and didn’t have
any adverse effects. Nor did
any of the elderly residents.
Jackson, who was also
concerned about passing the
virus to his mother, booked his
appointment.
“It feels good, like I made
the right decision,” he said.
Brittany Bell, executive
director of Ida Culver House
Broadview, another Era Liv-
ing retirement community,
also found one-on-one conver-
sations to be a powerful way
to counter misinformation and
dispel rumors.
“There’s a lot of scary infor-
mation out there,” she said.
Some staff members heard
the vaccines would make
them sterile. Others thought
it contained live virus. Bell sat
with one employee at a com-
puter to investigate a video
clip that claimed a person had
dropped dead immediately
after getting a shot.
“We Googled it together, and
it was a fake video and we
talked through ways to deter-
mine whether things like that
are true or not,” Bell said.
More than 80% of her
staff, many of whom are im-
migrants from Africa, Latin
America and the Philippines,
are now vaccinated.
The Kaiser/Washington
Post survey found much
lower vaccination rates among
Black and Hispanic health
care workers — 39% and 44%,
respectively — compared to
the 57% rate among their
white peers. Several health
organizations are hoping to
correct that imbalance with
outreach efforts tailored for
employees with varied ethnic
and racial backgrounds.
UW Medicine and Harbor-
view Medical Center hosted
online sessions in multiple
languages and with transla-
tors for employees and their
families.
Confl uence Health,
which operates hospitals in
Wenatchee and a dozen clin-
ics in Central Washington,
enlisted Latino physicians and
nurses to champion vaccina-
tion and share their rational
for getting the shots. Kidney
specialist Dr. Mabel Bodell has
become a local celebrity with
her own YouTube channel and
Spanish language videos for
colleagues and the community
at large.
Vaccinations are slowly tick-
ing up, and Confl uence hopes
to reach 75 percent coverage
among its 4,400 employees,
said Senior Vice President
JoEllen Colson. Rates remain
lowest in administrative
departments like human
resources and fi nance, where
most employees are still
working remotely and many
have been reluctant to take
vaccines that could go to front-
line workers.
“We’re not hearing a lot of
fi rm ‘no’s,’ ” Colson said. “We’re
hearing a lot of: “maybe” and
“not yet.”
One Seattle chiropractor,
who describes herself as a
“selective vaxxer as opposed
to an anti-vaxxer,” said she
has no intention of getting the
shots but continues to mask
and take other precautions
when working with clients.
“To me it boils down to not
enough testing and too many
unknowns about the effects
of the vaccine itself,’ said the
67-year-old, who asked not to
be named.
She’s also not comforted
by the argument that serious
side effects are rare. Her
daughter suffered a stroke at
the age of 17, so she knows
that uncommon events can
happen. “I don’t want to be
that rare statistic.”
Patient demands a big
motivator
At least one hospital in
Washington has already hit
its 75 percent target, after
months of persuasion, educa-
tion and cajoling.
“I will tell you, I was skepti-
cal we would ever get there,”
said Jeannie Eylar, chief
nursing offi cer at Pullman
Regional Hospital on the
state’s eastern border. But she
discovered that peer pressure,
both subtle and overt, can be a
very effective tool.
Vaccinated employees de-
clared their status with pins,
and some recorded videos
explaining their decision.
Departments that reached
their goals were celebrated,
but those that lagged were
never shamed. The hospital’s
internal website featured
a fever chart that tracked
companywide progress like a
United Way Drive.
Most of the remaining
unvaccinated employees are
pregnant, nursing or trying to
get pregnant and waiting for
more evidence of the vaccines’
impact and performance —
and Eylar still has hopes of
getting them on board.
With the rate of new staff
vaccinations slowing down
in many places, some health
organizations are trying to
fi gure out their next steps.
Multicare, which has hospitals
and clinics across Pierce and
several other counties, hit a
plateau at about 55 to 60%
vaccinated, said June Alteras,
senior vice president and chief
quality, safety and nursing
offi cer.
“We just put out a survey,
trying to understand what
the barriers are and what
else we can do to help move
people through their vaccine
hesitancy,” she said.
Some health systems in
other parts of the country
offer incentives like bonuses
or gift cards for workers who
get jabbed. A few, including
Houston Methodist and Atria
Senior Living — will mandate
vaccination.
Patient demand may even-
tually prove to be the most
powerful motivator.
One Seattle resident said he
dropped his longtime dentist
after learning the man wasn’t
yet vaccinated. At Pullman
Regional Hospital, some preg-
nant patients insist all their
caregivers be inoculated. A
similar dynamic is beginning
to play out in at least a few
other hospitals, assisted-living
and nursing homes across
the state, administrators said,
even though full protective
gear is still required.
Privacy is an issue, since
federal law protects both pa-
tient and staff medical records,
said Dale, of the Washington
Health Care Association.
But requests for vaccinated
caregivers are reasonable, he
added.
“If it was me or my family
member in a facility, I would
want the staff to be vaccinated
for sure.”
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