Jobs for unvaccinated hospital workers in limbo as vaccine mandate lawsuits continue

DALLAS - The Texas attorney general announced additional lawsuits against the Biden administration over vaccine mandates.

One of those lawsuits includes mandates for healthcare workers.

Hospital systems across the state required vaccinations with most either getting the shot or getting an exemption. 

There are all sorts of confusion surrounding vaccine mandates that leave some to wonder if they still have a job.

Meredith Moody, a registered nurse of 15 years for Baylor Scott & White, doesn’t know if she still has a job because she’s not vaccinated.

"As far as I know, I’m terminated," she said.

Baylor initially told non-vaccinated employees they had to be in compliance by Oct. 1.

"I worked Oct. 1," Moody said. "All day long, I wanted for those double doors to open and someone to escort me out. Nothing happened."

The deadline was extended to Nov. 15.

Moody says she hasn’t heard from anyone at the hospital since the deadline passed, only last week before the deadline.

"As far as I know, I had an email Thursday that notified me that I would be terminated as of Nov. 16.  That’s the last I heard," she said.

The CDC says the vaccines are safe and effective. About 58% of eligible Texans are fully vaccinated. Moody has long-term concerns.

"There are no long-term studies five years from now. Ten years from now," she said.

Gov. Greg Abbott banned vaccine mandates. But the Biden administration is requiring them for healthcare workers.

And the state’s been suing over mandates, first with large businesses and this week with the mandates for healthcare workers and federal contractors.

"We don’t know yet how the courts are going to resolve those disputes," said SMU Constitutional Law Professor Dale Carpenter.

On Tuesday, more than a dozen lawsuits against vaccine mandates for businesses have been consolidated into one. And it will be heard by an appeals court out of Ohio. It’s likely any decision there will lead to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"What it might come down to in the end is the United States Supreme Court, which may be asked by either side — whichever side loses — to intervene," Carpenter said.

Supreme court justices, including new Trump appointees, have appeared to side with the mandates —including a recent ruling by the court not to block a vaccine mandate for healthcare workers in Maine.

As for Moody, she says it’s extremely confusing and is still waiting to hear directly from Baylor about her employment status. She says some of her colleagues received religious exemptions, but she didn’t file for one because it wouldn’t have been an honest claim.

"It wouldn’t have been the whole truth," she said.

Baylor did not answer our specific emailed questions related to Moody’s case or if it’s enforcing the mandate now that they’re passed their own deadline. It does say that it has more than 99% of workers in compliance. 

However, the DFW Hospital Council tells us that compliance includes those who have been exempted. Baylor did not provide us that data.