Some California hospitals are violating federal guidelines for vaccine distribution by inoculating relatives of workers who are not first-line or first-responder health care providers.
Hospitals say many employees who are eligible for vaccination turn down the opportunity, leaving dozens of doses of vaccine thawed and spoiling. Instead of wasting the vaccine, the hospital allowed employees to contact their families for inoculation.
Hospitals insist that the first respondents were targeted for the vaccine before the workers’ relatives were inoculated.
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A former national leader in emergency management, who asked not to be identified, said this week that just before Christmas, a relative working at the Southern California Hospital invited members of his family to receive Pfizer vaccines at the unit. .
The woman provided the Southern California newsgroup with text messages from the hospital showing her appointment and subsequent inoculation. She is scheduled to return to the hospital in January to receive her second dose of vaccine.
“The hospital planned to vaccinate all their employees, but a large number of employees refused and were placed on a lot of thawed vaccines,” the woman said, explaining what hospital staff told her. “They offered police officers, firefighters and first responders to get vaccinated and told employees they could invite four family members.”
Not surprisingly, word spread that the hospital was flooded with vaccine applications, which led to the unit trying to inoculate police and firefighters instead of relatives and friends.
“Faced with defrosted, expiring vaccines that cannot be frozen and without an emergency plan, doctors have chosen to vaccinate people they could,” she said. “That’s what doctors do, it saves lives. This is what happens in the event of a disaster. Situations are constantly changing and people have to make commanding decisions to save as many lives as possible within their current capacity. Hospitals are overwhelmed saving lives and do not have 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. It seems that they ordered too much vaccine to inoculate their workers, which left a considerable number of doses.
“The excess could not be returned to the distribution center,” she said in an email. “The instructions provided with the vaccine have indicated that the vaccine has a shelf life of five days when removed from the approved freezer. The distribution center indicated that the vaccine should not be stored in dry ice or transport freezers. The whole vaccine had to be used within five days or thrown away. “
After inoculating all hospital staff who requested the vaccine, staff contacted doctors treating patients in the unit as well as those receiving the first local response, including police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians to inform them of the vaccine’s availability. according to Gilbert. In addition, some public service workers were also vaccinated.
I guess we should expect this type of snafus, especially in the beginning. However, it is worrying that hospitals could not find enough police and firefighters who wanted to be inoculated. It makes us believe that they really haven’t worked hard enough.
As for those who do not want to be vaccinated, this is their choice. Honestly, it leaves more vaccines for those who want to be inoculated, which means they will take their dose earlier.