Marcy Doderer, CEO of Arkansas Children’s
Back in the summer, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the state’s pediatric health system that includes Arkansas Children’s Northwest in Springdale, announced that it was requiring all medical staff to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Sept. 30, last Thursday, as a condition of employment.
In an interview last week, Dr. Rick Barr, EVP and chief clinical and academic officer of Arkansas Children’s, said that 97%-98% of the medical staff had been vaccinated and that “just a handful” of exemptions had been granted.
Hilary DeMillo, media relations manager for Arkansas Children’s, later added in an email that the health system’s “vaccination encouragement campaign is aimed at the entire team. We are reporting our success across all 7 entities that make up Arkansas Children’s. As of Monday, 9.27.21 our vaccination rate is 84.8%.”
Barr, Arkansas Children’s CEO Marcy Doderer and health care professionals across the state have emphasized the importance of vaccinations in slowing the spread of COVID, whose delta variant caused a spike in cases of the disease this summer that is only now beginning to slow down.
“It’s just a continued drumbeat,” Doderer said. “We cannot let up on the fact that it’s [the vaccine] working, that vaccines do work. It’s not too late.”
She added: “We do find it’s the one-on-one conversation with a trusted health care provider that allows the family to be able to think about it. … It’s a no-pressure process.”
Dr. Jennifer Dillaha, chief medical officer and medical director for immunizations and outbreak response at the state Health Department, in discussing vaccine hesitancy among some in the United States, said: “You know, we live in a very difficult time and people are so much under stress and it makes it hard for people to sort through information that they need to make good decisions to protect themselves.”
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