At a time when Arizona hospitals report increasing staffing shortages and surgery backlogs, Banner Health has suspended the surgical privileges of an experienced physician after denying his repeated requests for a COVID-19 vaccination exemption.
Dr. Devin L. Gray has 30 years medical experience and now specializes in general and trauma surgery. He was infected by COVID-19 last year, leading Gray to donate his plasma to help patients who did not have antibodies.
“Now unless you submit to the vaccination or get an exemption you are considered as if you had leprosy,” Gray told Arizona Daily Independent.
Several hospitals in Maricopa County have honored Gray’s religious objection to the COVID-19 vaccination. But Banner Health officials recently suspended his medical staff membership and his clinical privileges after questioning the veracity of his religious exemption requests.
On Nov. 9, Gray received an email from Banner Health officials advising that he had been suspended for non-compliance with Banner’s COVID-19 vaccination policy. The notice also advised that after 30 days of suspension, Gray “will be deemed to have voluntarily resigned” his membership and privileges.
The deadline expired last week. Gray says the suspension “has nothing to do with my ability to do surgery or my practice as a doctor” and that he has provided Banner officials with a list of reasons he should not be suspended.
“But as far as I know they are proceeding with an involuntary resignation of my privileges,” Gray said, adding he understands his surgical privileges would likely be restored by Banner if he proves he is vaccinated.
What is troublesome about the suspension notice, Gray said, is that it states he is allowed to “visit others who are receiving medical treatment in Banner facilities, if permitted by applicable policy” despite his unvaccinated status. Gray is also “welcome to receive medical care in Banner facilities,” the notice states.
“If [Banner] had 200 beds in the hospital and allows one visitor for each patient per day and don’t see a problem with that as far as COVID-19 goes but they are worried about one doctor who doesn’t get the vaccination going to the hospital and possibly spreading it to others shows that they are not really concerned about infection,” Gray said. “They are concerned about control.”
Although Gray is no longer saving lives within Banner’s system, his skills and experience are not going to waste. He has surgical privileges at Arizona General Hospitals, Chandler Regional Medical Center, Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, and the Mountain View Medical Center in Mesa, based on the same COVID-19 vaccination exemption request denied by Banner.
“Banner was the only system that rejected my exemption letter. I revised it twice and they still rejected it,” according to Gray, who first spoke out a few months ago when thousands of health care professionals were threatened by Banner with termination for not consenting to prove their COVID-19 vaccination status with the company.
It is estimated several thousand health care workers across Arizona have sought medical or religious COVID-19 vaccination exemptions. A large number of those are believed to work for Banner Health, the largest private employer in Arizona.
“To me these mandates are not following the science; none of the things that the state or hospitals have implemented have slowed down the response to this virus,” Gray said. “Most others have been given an exemption. I believe that [Banner officials] have specific things they are allowing the exemption for and disallow in others for some arbitrary reason.”
An example of that, Gray explained, is that Banner’s denial of his exemption noted he was being denied for not stating any sincerely held beliefs.
“My whole exemption letter was my sincerely held beliefs,” Gray said.
The seemingly arbitrary approval of exemptions is an issue Gray is pursuing. “I did place a complaint with the Arizona Attorney General because I feel that who are they [Banner] to determine my sincerely held beliefs,” he said.
Gray is very rooted in Maricopa County, having grown up in Mesa. After serving a mission in Chile he graduated from BYU in 1987 before attending medical school at the University of Texas in Houston. In 1992 and his wife, to whom he has been married 30 years, returned to Maricopa County for his residency.
“Surgery was what I always wanted to do since having my own appendix removed when I was 16,” according to Gray’s Dignity Health biography. “I love diseases that have cures and immediate results and enjoy patients getting their lives back to normal.”