Weeks after Maine’s vaccine mandate for health care workers went into effect, data suggest it had only a small impact on total employment in the industry, but the state still faces a shortage of health care workers as the pandemic continues.
The continued staffing challenges come as COVID-19 cases in Maine are as high as they have ever been headed into winter, with a record 327 people hospitalized with the virus on Thursday and unvaccinated people continuing to drive the majority of cases.
Early data from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services suggest total health care employment has declined only slightly following the vaccine mandate, although the effects varied by provider and individual facilities, mostly nursing homes, saw a greater drop.
The requirement followed more than a year of falling employment due to the pandemic for an already challenged industry with no easy solution despite additional funding on the way. It is hard to decouple wider effects on this sector and others from the mandate.
“When we talk with our members, the No. 1 reason that comes up why workers leave their positions in long-term care is due to burnout and stress,” said Angela Westhoff, CEO of the Maine Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes and long-term care facilities. “I think the pandemic really has just heightened all of that. The vaccine mandate is certainly part of it, but less so.”
The mandate from Gov. Janet Mills, which went into effect at the end of October, is among the strictest in the nation for health care workers, with no testing option or nonmedical exemption. Vaccination rates rose sharply following it — the rate among nursing home staff rose from 72 percent in July to just shy of 97 percent in October, while it rose from 80 percent to 98 percent among hospital workers.