Staff Reports

PARKERSBURG — All employees of WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center in Parkersburg will be required to to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of October, the hospitals announced.

In a press release from the West Virginia University Health System, of which Camden Clark is part, all employees will be required to be fully vaccinated with both doses of the two-dose series by Oct. 31.

“We’re doing this because it is the right thing to do,” said Albert L. Wright Jr., president and CEO of the WVU Health System. “We are the state’s leading healthcare provider and largest employer, and we have a higher obligation to our patients as well as to each other. I want WVU Medicine hospitals and clinics to be as safe as possible for our patients and staff. A fully vaccinated workforce will help ensure that safety.”

According to WVU Medicine spokespersons, if someone has been vaccinated with the one-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine, they do not need to get the two-shot Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. Any COVID-19 vaccine authorized or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or by the World Health Organization will be accepted to satisfy the vaccination requirement, they said.

Camden Clark Medical Center will hold a series of vaccine clinics, the first of which is Friday, officials said.

Being vaccinated will benefit the community and patients as vaccination against the virus that causes COVID-19 is a critical step for protecting the health and safety of local communities and ending the pandemic, officials said.

“This requirement is in place to protect the health and safety of patients, healthcare personnel, the families of patients and healthcare personnel, and the community as a whole from COVID-19 infection through vaccination,” said a statement released by WVU Medicine. “It is meant to help safeguard West Virginia’s critical healthcare infrastructure and ensure we can conduct our mission as best we can during a pandemic that is now approaching its second year. We have to remember that healthcare is a team sport, one that requires its members to be healthy and able to do their jobs which is to care for patients.”

About 70 percent of all Camden Clark employees have been vaccinated, the hospital said.

If someone, for whatever reason, can’t be vaccinated, unvaccinated asymptomatic employees will be required to submit daily attestations that they are symptom-free and undergo twice weekly testing for COVID-19, officials said.

Masks will continue to be required by employees and visitors to Camden Clark and its facilities around the community.

The decision came on the same day the FDA gave full approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, which the Health System had already administered to more than 60 percent of its workforce, and after the West Virginia Hospital Association said it supported vaccination of health care personnel.