Some Big Apple health workers are angry that less exposed hospital employees have cut the line to get the COVID-19 vaccine – a fight for life-saving bullets, according to a report on Friday.
Doctors and nurses at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital and other medical centers are turning against each other after the increases failed to prioritize and regulate who gets the blows first, sources told the New York Times.
“Clearly, we are ready to shave each other for this,” a doctor at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital told the newspaper.
According to hospital rules, the most exposed employees – such as nurses and emergency room doctors – had to receive the first vaccine, followed by workers from other departments.
But employees removed from the front lines – including social workers and clerks working from home – allegedly entered the vaccination rooms prematurely, according to the report.
The line jump triggered a “free for all” at the hospital in the first 48 hours after the vaccine arrived, a second doctor told the newspaper.
“I think the sad thing is that people are starting to turn against each other,” the doctor said. “Can you honestly say that this official deserves this before me? No, but no one deserves it before anyone else. “
Healthcare workers are the first to receive preventive fire according to the New York State distribution plan. But the state has largely left it to individual infirmities to figure out how to make coveted internal cravings – and plans appear to have failed in some hospitals, according to the newspaper.
One week after the vaccines arrived, some nurses at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital had not yet been vaccinated, while other workers received blows.
In an example of employee tension, a hospital nurse confronted a social worker for jumping the line, according to the Times.
“She said, ‘We have to go to the emergency room sometimes’ – but it’s not true,” the nurse said of the nurse’s response.
The failure to clearly prioritize high-risk workers has angered some employees – apologizing to the hospital, according to the newspaper.
“I am so disappointed and saddened that this has happened,” New Craig Albanese, executive director of NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, wrote in an email to staff from The New York Times. .
In a statement to the Times, the hospital later said: “We are following all New York Department of Health guidelines on vaccine priority, with our initial focus on ICU and ED staff and equitable access for all.”
Meanwhile, at Mount Sinai Hospital, a doctor said workers could get a vaccine simply by standing in line and claiming to be doing “Covid-related procedures,” according to the newspaper.
“We feel disrespected and underestimated because of our second-level vaccination priority,” a group of hospital anesthetists told the newspaper.
In a statement, hospital officials said they were aware of only a few “inappropriate” vaccines.
Meanwhile, workers at Columbia University, Irving Medical Center, were also frustrated by a long wait for the vaccine.
“There is competitiveness, skepticism and distrust,” occupational therapist Ivy Vega told the newspaper. “It’s turning into a rivalry.”