Some staff at Central Wyoming College (CWC) aren't happy with conservative firebrand state Rep. Jeanette Ward, R-Casper.
On Thursday, Ward submitted an opinion piece to Cowboy State Daily arguing that Wyoming is losing health care workers because they are forcing medical students to receive and take COVID-19 vaccines and tests.
Ward said her daughter was recently prevented from getting a nursing education at CWC because she was going to be required to take a COVID-19 test. Ward also made a number of charged comments, such as referring to Wyoming’s health industry leaders as the “medical cartel” and denying the medical legitimacy of COVID-19 tests.
Jennifer Weydeveld, executive director for marketing and public relations for CWC, calls Ward’s claims inaccurate and damaging for what she saw as conflating the issue of required vaccines with COVID-19 tests that were mandated by organizations other than the school.
Weydeveld worries Ward’s piece could have an impact on student enrollment and said it already has had a negative effect on student and staff morale.
“It just seems like a pot-shot out of left field,” she said. “We’re a really small state and we work really hard to educate our nursing students.”
Weydeveld also clarified that it wasn’t CWC that required a test and the school does not require its nursing students to receive the COVID-19 vaccine or undergo COVID-19 testing.
Ward said she understands it wasn’t CWC’s call to require her daughter to take the test, but still doesn’t believe that makes it right.
“That is still unacceptable, and this is the reason why many young people do not want to enter health-related fields,” she said.
Weydeveld said CWC nursing enrollment has stayed steady over the last few years at around 32 students a year.
Many young people polled in public surveys have said they don’t want to enter the health care field because of the social and political pressures that have infiltrated the industry since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ward lost her reelection campaign in August to fellow Republican Julie Jarvis.
How It Works
The students of the CWC program must follow procedures required by the clinical facilities they study at, which follow different guidelines than CWC.
Ward’s daughter was being required to get a test to complete the clinical portion of her study at Westward Heights Care Center in Lander.
The Wyoming State Board of Nursing requires nursing students to complete clinical rotations in various health care facilities. Students are ineligible for licensure if they do not graduate from an approved nursing program, so nursing programs must follow all policies and procedures of the facilities.
Nursing students are notified of clinical requirements via mail in the summer before program entry and in the school’s nursing school handbook and are warned that some clinical agencies may require vaccination without exception. The college has no authority to override a clinic’s regulations and believes it has no obligation to provide substitute or alternate placement based on a student’s request or vaccine preference, according to its handbook.
Caitlin Delbridge, an administrator at Westward, confirmed to Cowboy State Daily that the nursing students were being required to take COVID-19 tests on Aug. 17 as a result of an outbreak of the virus at the facility.
In her opinion piece, Ward wrote that her daughter called her in tears to report that she was going to have to take a COVID-19 test, even though she was not sick.
She said her daughter decided to leave the nursing program and instead study health science, in the hopes that the Wyoming Legislature “will do its job and protect medical freedom in the next two years.”
Ward said she later learned the outbreak consisted of four people who tested positive for the virus. Delbridge would not confirm if this was true.
Standards
Delbridge did say it’s a common medical standard within the health care industry to require a COVID-19 test amid an outbreak, per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services guidelines.
Weydeveld also said clinical facilities like Westward are typically small, with residents living communally, which could foster an environment where COVID runs “rampant.”
“When there are outbreaks, we (as guests in a facility) follow any and all protocols for infection prevention and control,” Weydeveld said. “This is particularly of concern in residential care, where the population is vulnerable. Basically, we as health care providers, strive to do no harm.”
Weydeveld also said the school follows CDC recommendations that include COVID-19 vaccination, testing and masking.
Many health care leaders in Wyoming have stressed that Wyoming will lose a significant amount of federal funding if it rejects federal guidelines.
During her two years in the Legislature, Ward brought bills each year that would have prohibited required COVID-19 vaccination, testing and masking in Wyoming.
Throughout her opinion piece, Ward dismissed the validity and safety of COVID-19 tests.
She told Cowboy State Daily on Friday she stands behind all her comments.
“We the people are tired of the medical cartel doing this to us,” Ward said. “As a legislator, I’m weary of them coming to the Labor Health Committee complaining that they can’t get people to go into medical fields when they treat people like this.”
Reputation
Weydeveld said putting out misleading information about the CWC nursing school can be very damaging.
“It’s just shocking to have something like this happen,” she said.
About 60% of CWC’s budget comes from the state of Wyoming.
Weydeveld said one of the biggest priorities of her school is to keep and educate students in Wyoming.
“Something like this can have a big impact,” she said. “Maybe I student will think, ‘Well, CWC isn’t doing something right so I’m going to go elsewhere and not help in the medical industry.’”
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
