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Dr Hasan Gokal decided to donate 10 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine that were about to go to waste, in what he believed was the responsible decision. Everything that came then was “an absolute and utter shock” and “incredibly unexpected,” he told CBS News.
The Houston doctor worked as the Harris County Texas Department of Public Health emergency response physician for the office of preparedness. He was also the county medical director of COVID-19 vaccine deployment.
At the end of December last year, he was overseeing a vaccination event for emergency workers – the county’s first public vaccination event, he said. Within two weeks he would be fired and charged with theft for his actions that night.
At the end of the event, one last person showed up for a photo. Thus, a new vial of Moderna vaccine containing 11 doses was punctured to deliver the vaccine, which activated the six hour time limit for the remaining 10 doses.
The remaining 10 doses had to be in the arms within six hours or they had to be thrown away because they would have expired. Gokal said he was determined not to waste them. “It’s a county of 5 million people and we received the first 3,000,000 doses. There was no place to throw it away. Never, ”he said. “When you have something so precious, which saves lives, it would hurt you to throw it away.”
Gokal said his first reaction was to offer the doses to workers at the event, but they had already been vaccinated or refused. Rescuers had already left the site and the police there had already received the vaccine or said they wanted to wait before taking it.
With no other options, Gokal called a Harris County public health official in charge of operations to tell him about his plan to find 10 people and administer the remaining doses. He said he was told to go.
Because the event was the first time Harris County had started vaccinating the public, Gokal said there was no county protocol he could have followed at this point: “They didn’t exist. . It was a new scenario … have a priority of that, “he said.
Courtesy of Hasan Gokal
But he said Texas State Department health departments had been given advice to always try to find eligible people at that level when there were vaccine doses remaining at the end of a shift. . If you can’t find anyone eligible, find someone who is ready and able to do so. The agency’s message, Gokal said, was clear: “We don’t want wasted doses. Period.”
“At this point, I start going through my phone list, thinking of who might ‘fall under category 1 (b) (people over 65 or with a medical condition that increases the risk of serious illness related to Covid), said Dr Gokal.
He worked to find 10 people who met the state’s vaccine requirements. Some were acquaintances; others, strangers. Among them were two women in their sixties. Two elderly women bedridden. Their children in their 70s and suffering from health problems were also shot. A mother with a child who uses a ventilator, for whom catching the virus could have been a “death sentence,” Gokal said.
After midnight, and barely 20 minutes before the vaccine expired, the last person to receive it canceled. Gokal said he was faced with two options: throwing away the last dose or giving it to his wife, who suffers from pulmonary sarcoidosis, a lung disease that leaves her breathless and can be fatal. Given her condition, she was eligible, the doctor said.
Gokal said he never intended or planned to kick any of his family members unless it was through the “appropriate channels” – but given the unusual circumstances, he gave the last dose to his wife.
He submitted the documents for the 10 people he vaccinated the next morning at work and was transparent about what happened the day before with his colleagues and supervisor, he said. A week later, he was fired.
Human resources told him he should have returned the remaining doses, he said, even if that meant they would have been thrown away. Gokal, who immigrated from Pakistan at the age of 10, said human resources also questioned the lack of “fairness” among the list of people he had vaccinated – suggesting there was too much of Indian names in the group.
The Harris County Public Health Bureau said the department was unable to comment on the Gokal case.
Two weeks after being fired, the doctor discovered he had been charged with theft and charged with violating county protocols by Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg.
“He abused his position to put his friends and family in front of people who had gone through the legal process to be there,” Ogg said. She said a week had passed before “he told a fellow Harris County public health worker, who then reported him to supervisors.”
A judge later dismissed the charges. The judge’s ruling, who said “the affidavit is riddled with negligence and error,” noted that the state did not “sufficiently allege that the complainant had a greater right to possession of the vaccine than the defendant, who, by the depositor’s own admission, medical adviser for the response to COVID-19. “”
The district attorney still intends to pursue a case before a grand jury. Gokal’s lawyers expect this to happen within the next two weeks. If charged, he faces a year in prison.
Gokal’s attorney Paul Doyle said that when he requested copies of the written protocols and waiting list mentioned in the complaint, a prosecutor told him there were none and that ‘there was no written waiting list.
In an email, Dane Schiller, the district attorney’s director of communications, said the office couldn’t comment on the case, but referred CBS News to the impeachment document..
Gokal said he brings tears to his eyes whenever he recounts the moment he found out charges had been laid against him.
The most difficult thing he had to face, he said, was noticing the fallout from the situation on those close to him: his wife was having trouble sleeping and his condition was deteriorating. His children now found it difficult to concentrate on their schoolwork: “It was devastating,” he said.
“When I’m in the ER, when there is a question mark as to what the right thing to do is, human life always trumps any political issue. No one ever questions that,” Gokal said. , who has a background in emergency medicine. Now he says he faces the repercussions of not wasting a vaccine in the middle of a pandemic.
Gokal said he hopes his experience doesn’t cause other doctors to lose their moral sense and be dissuaded from doing “the right thing” when it comes to making decisions.
“It’s a shame that I was the first on the scene with this type of situation and not several down the line, when they realized that it had to happen every time,” he said. .
Earlier this month, the Texas Medical Association and the Harris County Medical Society released a statement supporting Gokal’s actions.
“It is difficult to understand a justification for charging a well-meaning doctor in this situation with a criminal offense,” the statement said.
Whatever the outcome of the legal proceedings, Gokal fears for his career.
The accusation “made Dr Gokal look horrible around the world,” his lawyer said, and tarnished a career he has spent two decades building.
“Everyone read the initial story and the initial reaction was, ‘These were vaccines for my parents, grandparents and frontline workers. How dare he steal them? “” Said Doyle.
For now, Gokal spends his time volunteering at a charity health clinic.
“Since the only alternative would be to throw away the vaccines, I wouldn’t have done anything different,” Gokal said. “I wouldn’t be a good doctor if I said I regretted doing this.”
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