OhioHealth has paused its timeline for requiring employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The health care provider said its decision is based on recent regulatory and legislative issues, however, it did not specify which legislation or regulations were at issue.
In August, OhioHealth said that all 35,000 of its associates, providers, and volunteers had to be fully vaccinated by December 1, or have an approved medical or religious exemption.
OhioHealth released the following statement on its decision to pause vaccination requirements:
“We believe, like the majority of health systems nationwide, that requiring the vaccine is the right thing to do to protect our patients and staff from COVID-19 and are moving forward with our decision to require the COVID-19 vaccine or have an approved medical or religious exemption.
“Our process was developed to ensure compliance with state and federal law. However, given the recent regulatory and legislative issues we are pausing our timeline. We are not changing our mandate process, but we are pausing on the timeline at this point."
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost last month joined a federal lawsuit to stop a COVID vaccine mandate for health care workers.
