[ad_1]
A number of non-frontline Stanford Medicine employees received the COVID-19 vaccine over the weekend, the hospital confirmed, just two weeks after Stanford hospital residents protested the deployment of the first allocation of vaccines to administrators and physicians who are not in contact with patients.
Doses of the vaccine were offered by walk-in on Saturday and Sunday, the Stanford Daily reported on Wednesday for the first time. Although intended for frontline staff, “inaccurate information” has led to the vaccination of a number of staff who are not eligible for the vaccine at this stage of the deployment.
“Unfortunately, this past weekend inaccurate information regarding vaccine availability circulated within our community, which has led to some ineligible employees being vaccinated,” Stanford Medicine said in part in a mailed statement. electronics at SFGATE.
“For the moment, Stanford Medicine only administers vaccines to health workers in contact with patients,” the statement continued. “We have resolved this issue and are confident that we will continue to rapidly vaccinate the entire Stanford Medicine community through an ethical and fair process.”
The hospital did not respond to follow-up questions about the number of ineligible employees who were vaccinated. The vaccinations were only meant to be given to frontline workers “by invitation only,” according to the Stanford Daily.
The “inaccurate misinformation” appeared to stem from a misunderstanding that an “excess” of vaccine was available for distribution to Stanford Medicine employees; in particular, a quoted non-frontline worker who received the vaccine told the Stanford Daily that he felt too many vials of the vaccine had been thawed for the expected crowd over the holiday weekend.
Word of mouth about the vaccine made available to all staff spread from there, according to the article. (Note that COVID-19 vaccines should be stored in freezers between -80 and -60 degrees Celsius; once thawed, vaccines should be used within 120 hours, or five days, and cannot be refrozen. , according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)
Questions about how the COVID-19 vaccine was deployed among Stanford hospital workers were revealed on December 18, after residents protested the hospital for distributing the vaccine to administrators and doctors working from home. At the time, a letter to Stanford executives signed by residents said the hospital was distributing the vaccine to 5,000 employees in its first phase; of these, only seven residents and fellows were included.
Stanford Medicine later apologized for its role in vaccine distribution, writing in part that it had taken “full responsibility for errors in the execution of our vaccine distribution plan.” Our intention was to develop an ethical and fair process for the distribution of the vaccine. .. We are immediately revising our plan to better sequence vaccine distribution. “
According to a calendar released by Stanford Medicine on Dec. 23, frontline agents and other healthcare workers in “high acuity settings” are supposed to be the top priority. Front-line workers were scheduled to receive their vaccinations from December 17 to 28; hospitals, outpatient providers, and patient-contact staff were the next to receive vaccinations from December 28 to January 8; all other Stanford Medicine employees could then receive the vaccine after January 8.
As of December 23, up to 7,725 Stanford Medicine workers have received the COVID-19 vaccine.
SFGATE Editor-in-Chief Amy Graff contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source link