Leading state senate and house republicans are calling for the legislature to amend Gov. Janet Mills’ vaccine mandate for health care workers to allow for a testing exemption, insisting that it is the only way to stave off the rationing of health care.

Sen. Jeffrey Timberlake (R-Androscoggin) and Rep. Kathleen Dillingham (R-Oxford) issued a joint letter to Senate President Troy Jackson and House Speaker Ryan Fecteau today calling for both leaders to reconvene the legislature. According to the letter, Timberlake and Dillingham recently visited Central Maine Healthcare in Lewiston.

“It was presented to us that unless there is a testing exemption to Governor Mills' vaccine mandate, (Central Maine Healthcare) will be forced to ration care due to lack of staffing,” Timberlake and Dillingham wrote.

According to the Bangor Daily News, If the governor’s mandate goes into effect as written next month, Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston would lose enough workers that it would have to cut intensive care unit beds by 50 percent. 

The hospital announced on Tuesday that it was suspending some services due to staffing issues.

The letter proposed allowing unvaccinated health care workers to work as long as they could provide negative tests for COVID-19. The letter notes that a similar policy was in place last year, and asks for the legislature to convene to amend the governor’s mandate to include the testing exemption.

“Mainers should not be denied access to healthcare because the Governor refuses to act to keep hospital beds available,” Timberlake and Dillingham wrote. “It is our responsibility to remove this self-imposed rationing of care.”