Dr. Hasan Gokal decided to give 10 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine that were about to be wasted, in what he thought was the responsible decision. Everything then came it was “an absolute, complete shock” and “unexpected for the mind,” he told CBS News.
The Houston physician worked as an emergency response physician for the Harris County Department of Public Health in Texas for the Training Office. He was also the medical director for the launch of the COVID-19 vaccine for the county.
In late December last year, he was overseeing a vaccination event for emergency workers – the first public vaccination event in the county, he said. In two weeks, he will be fired and charged with theft for his actions that night.
As the event ended, one last person showed up to shoot. So, a new bottle of the 11-dose Moderna vaccine was perforated to administer the vaccine, which activated the six-hour time limit for the remaining 10 doses.
The other 10 doses were supposed to be in the arms within six hours or should be discarded as they would have expired. Gokal said he was determined not to waste them. “This is a county of 5 million people and we had the first 3,000 thousand doses. There was no place to throw any of them. Never,” he said. “When you have something so precious that saves your life, it would hurt to throw it away.”
Gokal said his first reaction was to provide doses to event workers, but they had either already been inoculated or refused. Emergency workers have already left the scene, and police there have either taken the vaccine or said they want to wait before taking it.
With no other options, Gokal called a Harris County public health official in charge of operations to share his plan to find 10 people and administer the remaining doses. He said he was told to go after that.
As the event was the first time Harris County has started vaccinating the public, Gokal said there is no protocol in the county that he could have followed at the time: “There were none. This was a new scenario … they have a priority in that regard, “he said.
The kindness of Hasan Gokal
But he said there is guidance from the Texas State Department of Health Services to always try to find eligible people at this level when there are vaccine dose remnants at the end of a change. If you do not find anyone eligible, find someone willing and able to take it. The agency’s message, Gokal said, was clear: “We don’t want any doses to be wasted. Period.”
“At that moment, I start going through my phone list, thinking about who might” fall into category 1 (b) (people over the age of 65 or with a health condition that increases the risk of serious illnesses related to of Covid), said Dr. Gokal.
He hurried to find 10 people who would meet the state’s vaccination requirements. Some were known; others, foreigners. Among them were two 70-year-old women. Two elderly women who are tied to the bed. Their 70-year-old children, who were suffering from medical conditions, were also shot. A mother with a child using a fan, for whom catching the virus could have been a “death sentence,” Gokal said.
After midnight and just 20 minutes before the vaccine expired, the last person to receive it was canceled. Gokal said he faces two options: throwing the last dose or giving it to his wife, who suffers from pulmonary sarcoidosis, a lung disease that leaves her short of breath and can be fatal. Given her condition, she was eligible, the doctor said.
Gokal said he never intended or planned to give the shot to any member of his family unless it was through “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 his supervisor, he said. A week later, he was fired.
Human resources told him he should return the remaining doses, he said, even if that meant they were thrown away. Gokal, who immigrated from Pakistan at the age of 10, said human resources had called into question the lack of “fairness” in the list of people he had inoculated – suggesting there were too many Indian names in the group.
The Harris County Public Health Communications Office said the department could not comment on the Gokal case.
Two weeks after he was dismissed, the doctor found out that he had been accused of theft and accused of violating county protocols by Harris District Attorney Kim Ogg.
“He abused his position to put his friends and family in line with people who went through the legal process to be there,” Ogg said. She said it was a week before “she told a colleague of Harris County public health employees, who then reported it to supervisors.”
A judge later dismissed the charges. The judge’s ruling, which stated that “the statement on one’s own responsibility is full of negligence and error”, stated that the State did not sufficiently claim that the applicant had a greater right to the vaccine than the defendant. COVID-19 response. ‘”
The prosecutor still intends to pursue a case before a grand jury. Gokal’s lawyers expect this to happen in the next two weeks. If he were charged, he could face up to a year in prison.
Gokal’s lawyer, Paul Doyle, said that when he requested copies of the written protocols and the waiting list referred to in the complaint, a prosecutor told him that there was no written waiting list.
In an email, Dane Schiller, the district attorney’s communications director, said the office could not comment on the case, but sent CBS News the tax document.
Gokal said he had tears in his eyes every time he told the story when he learned that charges had been filed against him.
The hardest thing he had to deal with, he said, was to notice the remedies his loved ones had: his wife was struggling to sleep and her condition was deteriorating. His children now had difficulty concentrating on schoolwork: “It was just devastating,” he said.
“When I’m in an emergency, when there’s a question mark about what to do, human life always goes beyond any policy issue. No one questions that,” said Gokal, who has experience in emergency medicine. . Now, he says it has to do with the repercussions of not wasting a vaccine in the midst of a pandemic.
Gokal said he hopes his experience will not cause other doctors to lose their moral compass and be discouraged from doing “the right thing” when it comes to making decisions.
“It is unfortunate that I was the first on stage with this type of situation and not many, when they realized that this should happen every time,” he said.
Earlier this month, both the Texas Medical Association and the Harris County Medical Society issued a statement supporting Gokal’s actions.
“It is difficult to understand any justification for accusing a well-meaning doctor in this situation of a crime,” the statement said.
Regardless of the outcome of the legal process, Gokal fears for his career.
The accusation “made Dr. Gokal look horrible worldwide,” his lawyer said, staining the career he spent two decades building.
“Everyone read the original story and the initial reaction was, ‘These were vaccines for my parents, grandparents and front-line workers. How dare he steal them? Doyle said.
For now, Gokal spends his time volunteering at a charity health clinic.
“Given that the only alternative would be to throw out vaccines, I would not have done anything different,” Gokal said. “I wouldn’t be a good doctor if I said I regretted doing that.”