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“Although this organization has successfully vaccinated some 6,900 people, in retrospect it was a mistake on the part of the Department of Public Health to ask the organization to operate these clinics.” As the head of the Department of Public Health, I take ultimate responsibility for this mistake, ”Farley said Friday in prepared remarks at a city council meeting.
The city severed ties with PFC amid reports that the nonprofit has become a for-profit entity. There were also concerns about PFC’s patient data collection and protection practices.
PFC CEO Andrei Doroshin said shortly after the split with Philadelphia that he had never hidden the group’s intentions to move into a for-profit company.
“Vaccinating large groups of people takes resources, manpower and ultimately financial assistance … We have always intended to increase the number of clinics to potentially vaccinate more than people (we’ve been working for months on plans to increase shared with the city) and it takes money to get there, ”he said in a statement.
Doroshin told CNN affiliate KYW that he felt he was being used as a “scapegoat” for the difficulties in distributing vaccines.
“The city needs a scapegoat to explain why it botched the vaccination effort,” Doroshin told KYW. “They probably think they’re embarrassed because a 22-year-old did a better job than them.”
By the time the PFC was hired to operate immunization clinics at the Philadelphia Convention Center, the organization was meeting all standards met by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Farley said Friday.
“The Inspector General has requested that I do not question or request documents from the staff members involved, which could interfere with his investigation,” Farley said. “I look forward to seeing the Inspector General’s full review to answer my own questions about how this decision was made.
Farley announces operational reforms, admits racial equity concerns
In response to the letter, Farley said on Friday that the health department had reorganized its vaccine distribution group, as well as scheduled and managed clinics to provide second doses to anyone who received their first dose via PFC.
Farley said the department had also added a member of staff responsible for racial equity to “strengthen the focus on racial equity of the vaccine distribution initiative,” awarded additional vaccine doses to the Black consortium Doctors Covid-19 and made additional plans to reach underserved communities. .
Philadelphia City Council said in a statement on Saturday that it had introduced legislation to address “ deficiencies in the way the city’s health department allowed an unqualified group of non-public health professionals to ” have access to thousands of doses of COVID-19 vaccine for distribution to city residents. , “including the introduction of contractual requirements before any vaccine distribution.
Farley also addressed the racial disparities in the city’s vaccine distribution effort so far, saying the “goal of achieving racial equity must be built into all decisions” about vaccinations.
“If we allowed anyone to get the vaccine, we would deliver doses very quickly, but the people who got them would probably be the most privileged, with the most resources to get to the front lines,” Farley said.
“If we maintained extremely strict restrictions on who met the eligibility criteria by requiring full documentation, we would slow the rate of vaccination.” And either of those things would likely reduce the number of African Americans and minority people who get vaccinated. work hard to strike the right balance between those goals, ”added Farley.
CNN’s Anna Sturla, Elizabeth Joseph, Dakin Andone and Samuel Romano contributed to this report.
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