Texas Hospital’s additional COVID-19 vaccines were intended for other front-line workers

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Although he was not expected to receive one of the first quarter of a million COVID-19 vaccines distributed in Texas, Rio Grande Valley pharmacist Danny Vela thought he would be in line sooner than the simplest because of what he does.

He then received a phone call Saturday from someone he knew at Renaissance Doctors Hospital in Edinburgh, one of Texas’ most affected virus facilities this year. Vela is not a hospital employee, but has been told that doses of vaccine are available if he wants one.

The reason: The hospital ended up having more vaccines than employees who wanted one, the DHR Health medical director for the Texas Tribune said Sunday. The lower-than-expected vaccine adoption rate was first reported by The Monitor.

So Vela, a pharmacist and co-owner of Lee’s Pharmacy in the Valley, and his daughter, a technician at Lee’s pharmacy, headed to the conference center across the street from the hospital, where a large vaccination operation was taking place in the lobby. Two hours later, both father and daughter had received a dose.

Vela felt “lucky and relieved,” he said.

Texas hospitals have begun receiving the first batches of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in the past few days. The state guidelines say that these initial batches should go to front-line health workers. But how the actual distribution works may look different from installation to unit, as everyone interprets these state recommendations.

It will be months before the vaccines become widely available to most Texans, whose condition is currently setting records for the number of people who have tested positive for coronavirus. Health officials said people should continue to wear masks, wash their hands frequently and practice social distance. They also say that vaccinated people could still carry and spread the virus.

Dr. Robert Martinez, medical director of DHR Health, said his hospital received 5,850 doses of vaccine, the same amount as the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, although the Houston hospital has a workforce nearly three times as large. larger than the unit in the Valley.

Martinez said DHR Health officials gave priority to first-rate employees for a dose, such as hospital staff working directly with COVID-19 patients and long-term care workers. But administrators have realized that there are not enough people eligible for the vaccine who will initially choose to receive it, Martinez said.

“You’re starting to see similar numbers across the country, all the distrust and misinformation,” he said.

Initially, about 40 to 60 percent of people who responded to a hospital survey said they would receive the vaccine, Martinez said.

The predominantly Hispanic region consists of Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and Willacy counties. Since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 68,000 people in the area have tested positive for coronavirus.

DHR Health did not want to waste vaccine doses. After the first day of distribution, the hospital began to go “down, down… on a small scale,” Martinez said. Hospital staff have called health workers from other medical institutions – such as hospitals, nursing homes, behavioral health institutions and anyone with front-line COVID-19 workers – in neighboring towns and counties in the valley.

“The more, the better here, as far as I’m concerned,” said Martinez, who stressed that “it wasn’t free for everyone.” He said he and other staff members told medical workers wondering if they could bring relatives not to do so.

No one who showed up for one of these doses had to prove their occupation, Martinez said, but many were known to the people who distributed the vaccine. Vela said the workers recognized him, but asked his daughter where she works and her profession.

“I had no reason to believe that there was anyone but health workers,” Vela said.

A photojournalist working for the Texas Tribune photographed several people in line for or receiving vaccines in Edinburgh on Saturday. But one person was State Senator Eddie Lucio Jr. MPs are not eligible for the vaccine in this first round unless they are health care workers, said Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Department of Health Services in Texas. Lucio Jr., whose district includes the southeastern portion of the Valley, could not be reached immediately for comment Sunday night.

The photojournalist also spoke to a man who identified himself as the deputy sheriff of Hidalgo County. Law enforcement officers are not included in the first level of DSHS of people to receive the vaccine.

A spokesman for the sheriff’s office in Hidalgo County did not return a call for comment. Martinez said he was unaware of any details, but said law enforcement sometimes helped hospital workers.

Van Deusen said in an email that vaccine providers “should meet the priorities set by the Expert Vocine Allocation Panel and DSHS.” In this first phase of distribution, “The priority is to vaccinate long-term care unit residents and front-line health care workers who interact directly with patients.”

The vaccine is not reserved exclusively for employees of a vaccine supplier, Van Deusen wrote. “We encourage providers … to contact other health workers in their community to help them vaccinate.”

Van Deusen said DSHS will look into concerns about who gets a vaccine to make sure “everyone understands the priorities right now and what the obligations are.”

In Houston, Texas Children’s Hospital distributed the entire initial batch of vaccine to its own workforce. A hospital working group developed its own “fair allocation framework” to determine who was eligible for those initial doses. This framework considered not only whether someone was a doctor or nurse, for example, but also whether they have a higher risk of death and “the impact on the hospital’s ability to care for patients,” said Jenn Jacome, Texas public Children relationship manager.

“At Texas Children’s, we are dedicated to the well-being of every health hero,” Jacome said. “To keep the hospital open, there are a number of team members, yes, obviously those who provide direct care to the patient, but others we need and who are critical to keeping the hospital running. “

This could mean an IT worker, for example, responsible for maintaining the functioning of the hospital’s IT system, although she could not confirm whether any IT worker had received initial doses. The second person to receive the vaccine was a custodial worker – Texas Children calls them environmental workers – whom the state considers a high priority for the vaccine if they work in areas with COVID-19-positive or high-risk patients. .

Texas Children emailed the entire workforce this week, giving them the option to opt for the vaccine. Those vaccinated in the first phase “chose and were considered the greatest risk to our fair allocation framework,” Jacome said in an email. She said Texas Children’s has completed its first phase of distributing the vaccine by Saturday night.

DHR Health delivered the last dose on Sunday afternoon, Martinez said. His priority, with each new vaccine shipment, will be to provide it to any front-line health worker, DHR Health who did not receive it for the first time. But don’t wait too long before going to the next person in line.

“Every day I keep that vaccine in a freezer, there is another person or a few other people who die,” he said.

A DHR Health employee named Omar, who asked The Tribune not to use his full name to protect private medical information, received the dose the previous morning. He works as a medical scribe, documenting electronic medical records in the emergency room of Starr County Memorial Hospital, about 50 miles from the DHR Health campus (DHR is his main employer).

Omar, 23, was delighted to receive the vaccine, although he said some members of his family were paying attention to it.

“I trust science,” he said.

Jason Garza contributed to this story.

Disclosure: DHR Health was a financial supporter of the Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial backers play no role in Tribune journalism. Find a complete list of them here.