A taxpayer-funded hospital district in Tarrant County is mandating COVID-19 vaccines for its employees, despite an executive order from Gov. Greg Abbott seeking to ban such mandates.
After orders from President Joe Biden, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is requiring that all healthcare facilities that accept Medicare or Medicaid mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for employees.
According to CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, “Today’s [Nov. 4] action addresses the risk of unvaccinated health care staff to patient safety and provides stability and uniformity across the nation’s health care system to strengthen the health of people and the providers who care for them.”
The taxpayer-funded Tarrant County Hospital District, which operates under the name “JPS Health Network,” sent an email informing employees of this December 5 deadline:
“All JPS Health Network employees, Acclaim clinicians and staff, volunteers, residents, students, contractors and vendors will be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by January 4, 2022. This means anyone not yet vaccinated must receive their first vaccine dose by December 5 to meet the deadline.”
The Tarrant County Hospital District has hiked taxes by 75.6 percent between 2013-2020 for Tarrant County residents. Now, the JPS Health Network is enforcing a federal vaccine mandate and threatening jobs in Tarrant County.
Despite Abbott’s executive order seeking to ban forced vaccinations, the governor has so far been unwilling to call lawmakers back to Austin for a special session to ban vaccine mandates.
Similar mandates were uncovered earlier this week at UTHealth, which is operated by the University of Texas.
