As most everyone already knows nurses need to be fully vaccinated for COVID or have a medical or religious exemption by Oct. 18, 2021. WSNA met for the fourth time today with Virginia Mason hospital leadership to bargain about the COVID vaccine mandates.

To meet Washington state’s requirement Nurses, regardless of vaccination status, must complete the new COVID-19 Vaccination Status Survey at https://home.commonspirit.org/employeecentral/health/covidvaccinestatusunconnected. To apply for a medical or religious exemption, complete the survey to receive additional instructions. Nurses who have been fully vaccinated need to send verification to Employee Central with the dates of the vaccination and a photo.

We were told the medical and religious exemptions have not been processed. If you are needing to submit for a medical or religious exemption, do not wait to get this information turned in. Virginia Mason was not able to give us a timeline for how long these will take to process the exemptions.

We have set another date to meet Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021, and will update everyone after that meeting.

In Solidarity,
Michelle

Questions? Contact WSNA Nurse Representative Michelle Moore at mmoore@wsna.org.