A hospital in Tallahassee, Florida, has begun distancing itself from a doctor who recently started advertising $50 medical exemption letters to area parents who do not want their children masked at school.
Capital Regional Medical Center confirmed through a spokesperson that it has started the process of removing emergency room physician Dr. Brian Warden from providing services to its hospital patients.
“We act with absolute integrity in all that we do, and it is our expectation that third-party providers behave in a way that is consistent with those values,” the hospital spokesperson said Thursday.
Tallahassee, the state capital, is also the seat of Leon County, where the superintendent and school board recently ordered K-8 students to wear face masks to class unless medically excused.
Masks are vital tools for slowing the spread of COVID-19, the potentially deadly respiratory disease caused by the contagious coronavirus, and Leon County said it would require them in schools amid a spike in cases among children.
Local news media has shared several images of recent social media postings in which the doctor can be seen advertising medical exemption letters for Leon County school children for a price of $50 apiece.
“I’m not doing this affiliated with any hospital or group,” he said on Facebook, adding the exemptions were being offered through Dove Field Health LLC, which state records show he incorporated on July 26.
Dr. Warden graduated from medical school in 2018 and did a three-year residency prior to receiving his Florida medical license in February, the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper reported this week.
“I’m not supposed to say anything,” Dr. Warden reportedly said in a text message when reached by a journalist for the publication.
The Washington Times has tried to contact Dr. Warden for comment.
Leon and nine other school boards in Florida have recently imposed face mask requirements for students amid a statewide increase in COVID-19 cases, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
There are roughly 34,000 students in Leon County, and about 337 — or roughly 1% — are self-reported to have COVID-19, the newspaper reported Wednesday.
At least two children in Leon County have died from COVID-19 within the past month, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.
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