Staff vaccination rates at CMMC, St. Mary’s slowly rise to meet other Maine hospitals’ levels

LEWISTON – More health care workers at Central Maine Medical Center and St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center are fully vaccinated as of the last day of June compared to the month prior, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

As of June 30, 65.7% of CMMC’s 2,606 staff members were fully vaccinated, a 7.6% increase from the end of May. At St. Mary’s, 73.2% of all staff there are fully vaccinated, which is a 21.1% increase from the month prior.

Those numbers bring the hospital closer to others in the state.

As of the latest update to DHHS’ health care worker vaccination dashboard late last week, nearly 79% of all hospital workers in the state were fully vaccinated by June 30, just short of a 5.5% increase from the month prior.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the state of Maine require hospitals, nursing homes, ambulatory surgical centers and other care facilities to submit the total number of staff and total number of fully vaccinated staff as of the last day of the previous month, according to the Maine DHHS dashboard.

Staff members include “all employees, temporary or contracted personnel and volunteers and students who are providing care, services and interacting with facility residents and staff,” both clinical and nonclinical.

“We’ve made a concerted effort in really directly communicating with as many team members as we can, really expressing the opportunity for team members to bring their concerns to us and meeting people where they are,” said Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Alexander of Central Maine Healthcare, CMMC’s parent company.

Alexander and St. Mary’s spokesman Steve Costello said the June numbers offer a more accurate snapshot than the May numbers since they were able make corrections to the total staff number.

Alexander said nearly 1,500 individuals were added to the total staff number to reflect all CMH personnel that may be on CMMC’s campus on any given day but who might also work at other CMH practices.

Costello said inactive staff and volunteers – about 450 individuals – were removed from their report, which he had previously said bloated the total number of staff and underscored the number of active personnel that were fully vaccinated.

Though CMMC and St. Mary’s no longer have the two lowest vaccination rates among Maine hospitals, they are still behind many of the state’s other hospitals.

In ranking the 35 hospitals that submitted data as of June from highest to lowest vaccination rates, CMMC is third from the bottom, with only Sebasticook Valley Health in Pittsfield and Northern Light Mayo Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft with lower vaccination rates.

“We continue to really try to have two messages,” Alexander said. “One is that vaccination is very important. It’s very important for the protection of our patients and for our own team members and for our own team members’ families. And that (two), everyone’s opinion is important. And so we want to make sure that we have open dialogue.”

St. Mary’s, which had the lowest vaccination rate as of May, is now ranked 27 out of 35.

One below St. Mary’s is Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington, which reported 71.1% of its 685 staff members are fully vaccinated, about a 9% increase from the month prior.

An additional 12% of the 594 staff at Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway got vaccinated between May and June, according to the dashboard, for total rate of 77.1%.

Vaccinations at Bridgton Hospital, which is part of CMH, increased 1.2% but the 173-member staff there is 85% vaccinated.

Rumford Hospital, also part of CMH, did not submit June numbers as of the July 15 dashboard update. As of May 31, 75.3% of its 194 staff were fully vaccinated.

Alexander, from CMH, said the spread of the delta variant elsewhere in the country and the potential for another surge in cases in Maine certainly concerns him.

“It’s on my mind constantly,” he said. “The challenge is, of course, (that) people live out in the community.”

In Androscoggin County, 60.6% of all residents ages 12 and older are fully vaccinated, compared to 67.7% of eligible Mainers who are fully vaccinated.

“I think there is a concern out there, and I’m sure it’s shared with others that, with this variant and how it’s affecting unvaccinated individuals that we really need to continue to increase awareness and get the message out that getting vaccinated – it’s safe, it’s protective of serious illness,” Alexander said.

CMH has not changed its stance that it will not mandate vaccinations, but Alexander said it’s not necessarily off the table. The Maine Hospital Association has advocated for mandatory vaccinations for all health care workers.

“Hopefully, we’ll continue to see an increase in our vaccination rate, not just within our own hospital, but in the county and in the state as a whole,” Alexander said.