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Some California hospitals are breaking federal vaccine distribution guidelines by inoculating relatives of workers who are not frontline health care providers or first responders.
Hospitals say many vaccine-eligible employees turn down the opportunity, leaving dozens of vaccine doses thawed and spoiled. Rather than wasting the vaccine, the hospital allowed some employees to contact their families for vaccination.
Hospitals insist first responders were targeted for the vaccine before workers’ relatives were inoculated.
OC register:
A former national emergency management leader, who asked not to be identified, said this week that just before Christmas, a relative who works at the Southern California hospital invited family members to receive the vaccines Pfizer in the facility.
The woman provided the Southern California News Group with text messages from the hospital indicating her appointment and subsequent inoculation. She is due to return to the hospital in January to receive a second dose of the vaccine.
“The hospital had planned to vaccinate all of its employees, but a lot of their employees refused and they were sitting on a lot of thawed vaccines,” the woman said, explaining what hospital staff told her. “They offered the police, firefighters and first responders to get vaccinated and also told employees they could invite four family members.”
Unsurprisingly, word got around and the hospital was inundated with advocates for the vaccine, leading the facility to attempt to inoculate police and firefighters instead of relatives and friends.
“Faced with thawed and expired vaccines that cannot be refrozen, and no contingency plan, doctors have made the choice to vaccinate people they can,” she said. “That’s what doctors do, save lives. This is what happens in disasters. Situations are constantly changing and people must make command decisions to save as many lives as possible within the limits of their current capabilities. Hospitals are overwhelmed with saving lives and have no time to stop and create a new vaccine distribution plan for a small amount of vaccine that is about to expire.
Part of the problem seems to be poor planning on the part of at least one hospital. They apparently ordered too much vaccine to inoculate their workers, leaving a significant number of doses.
“The excess could not be returned to the distribution center,” she said in an email. “The instructions that came with the vaccine state that the vaccine has a five-day shelf life when taken out of the approved freezer. The distribution center said the vaccine should not be stored in dry ice or in transport freezers. All the vaccine had to be used within five days or wasted. “
After inoculating all hospital workers who requested the vaccine, staff contacted doctors who treat patients at the facility, as well as local first responders, including police, firefighters and medical technicians. emergency to inform them of the availability of the vaccine, according to Gilbert. In addition, some officials were also vaccinated.
Guess we should expect this kind of snafus, especially early on. Still, it’s troubling that hospitals couldn’t find enough police and firefighters who wanted to be vaccinated. It makes us think they really haven’t tried hard enough.
As for those who do not want to be vaccinated, it is their choice. Frankly, that leaves more vaccines for those who want to be inoculated, meaning they will get their dose sooner.
Run for your life! This is the Mutant COVID variant!
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