Hundreds gather outside Dallas’ Baylor hospital to protest vaccination mandates

More than 200 health care workers and others gathered outside Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas on Saturday to protest a growing number of hospital systems demanding that employees receive COVID-19 vaccinations.

Baylor Scott & White, Methodist Health System, and Texas Health Resources announced all employee vaccination mandates in late July. Children’s Health in Dallas and Cook Children’s in Fort Worth followed suit this week.

Many of the protesters on Saturday were healthcare workers in their medical gowns. Some said mandatory injections would only add to the tremendous stress medical professionals were under during the pandemic.(Lola Gomez / photographer)

Protesters lined up on either side of the CBD-Fair Park Link near the intersection with Junius Street, holding signs saying “Stop the Mandate” and messages of freedom and choice. Dozens of people were in medical gowns.

Several motorists honked their horns in support and waved to the demonstrators as they drove past. At one point, a Dallas Fire Rescue Truck blew its horn, cheering the crowd on.

Shane Lall and his partner Blake Randolph participated in Baylor Scott & White peels.

In support of the demonstrators, the horn of a passing Dallas Fire Rescue Truck sounded. (Lola Gomez / photographer)

Lall, who said he had a disease preventing him from getting the vaccine, said he believed more research was needed on the vaccine’s long-term effects.

“Basically we stand for body autonomy,” he said. “I am in favor of everyone being able to make a decision when it comes to their body and what they want to put in it.”

Randolph said medical staff were overworked during the pandemic and that the need for vaccinations will create even more stress.

“I think in the long run it will really affect patients,” said Randolph. “Every time someone quits or is fired for not getting a vaccine, our workforce shrinks even further. We are already overworked and understaffed every day. “

The most recent mandates came in the wake of what Dallas County health officials have called a “terrifying development” of cases due to the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus. The variant has become the main strain in the United States, according to experts, and most people hospitalized with it are unvaccinated.

“Individual freedom trumps business rights,” said Senator Bob Hall (center), R-Edgewood, who was there on Saturday to support protesters.(Lola Gomez / photographer)

Experts and local officials urge the unvaccinated to get the syringes. In Texas, just over 53% of people over the age of 12 are fully vaccinated.

Also in attendance on Saturday was Senator Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, who tabled a bill during the legislature that would have prevented governments and state agencies from setting vaccine mandates.

“I think it’s about individual freedom and personal freedom,” said Hall, whose bill died on the committee and said he was not vaccinated. “Individual freedom trumps business rights. Therefore I think that it is up to everyone to make this decision. “

When asked to comment on the protest on Friday, Governor Greg Abbott’s press secretary Renae Eze released the statement:

“Governor Abbott has made it clear that we must rely on personal responsibility, not government mandates. Every Texan has the right to decide for himself and his children whether to wear masks, open their shops or get vaccinated.

“Vaccines are the most effective defense against contracting COVID and serious illness, and we continue to urge all eligible Texans to receive the vaccine,” the statement said. “The COVID vaccine will always be voluntary and never enforced in Texas.”

Staff writer Michael Williams contributed to this report.

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