“Although this organization successfully vaccinated approximately 6,900 people, it was subsequently a mistake for the Department of Public Health to ask the organization to operate these clinics. As the person responsible for the Department of Public Health, I bear the ultimate responsibility for that mistake, ‘Farley said in prepared remarks at a city council meeting on Friday.
The city severed ties with PFC amid reports that the nonprofit has moved to a for-profit venture. There were also concerns about the collection and protection of patients for PFC.
PFC CEO Andrei Doroshin said shortly after the break with Philadelphia that he never hid the group’s intentions to move to a profitable business.
“Vaccination of large groups of people requires resources, manpower and ultimately financial assistance … We have always planned to sharpen the number of clinics to eventually vaccinate more people (we have been working for months on plans to increase vaccinations and have shared them with the city) and money is needed to do so, ”he said in a statement.
Doroshin told CNN’s subsidiary KYW he feels he is being used as a “scapegoat” for problems with the distribution of vaccines.
“The city needs a scapegoat for why they campaigned,” Doroshin told KYW. “They probably think they’m ashamed because a 22-year-old did a better job than they did.”
At the time PFC was operating vaccine clinics in the Philadelphia Convention Center, the organization met all the standards that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention met, Farley said Friday.
“The Inspector General has requested that I not question or solicit documents from the staff members involved that may interfere with his investigation,” Farley said. “I am eager for the full review by the Inspector General to answer my questions on how this decision was made.”
Farley announces operational reforms, acknowledges racial equity concerns
In response to the letter, Farley testified Friday that the health department had reorganized its vaccine distribution group, as well as planned and operated clinics to provide the second doses to all who received their first dose through PFC.
Farley said the department also added senior staff equity to racial equity to strengthen the emphasis on racial equity from the initiative-distribution initiative, and allocated additional vaccine doses to the Black Doctors Covid-19 consortium, and considered additional plans to to reach communities with fewer servants.
The Philadelphia City Council said in a statement Saturday that it has enacted legislation to “address shortcomings in how the city’s health department has allowed an unqualified group of non-public health workers access to thousands of doses of COVID-19 vaccine for distribution among city residents., “including the establishment of contract requirements before any vaccine distribution takes place.
Farley also addressed racial differences in the city’s vaccine distribution so far, saying that ‘the goal of achieving racial equity should be built into all decisions’ regarding vaccinations.
“If we were to allow someone to receive vaccine, we would deliver doses quickly, but the people who receive it would probably be the most privileged, with the most means to get to the front of the queue,” Farley said.
“If we were to maintain extremely strict restrictions on people who meet the admission requirements by demanding extensive documentation, we would slow down the vaccination rate. And one of the two is likely to reduce the number of African-American and minority people being vaccinated. We will continue. to work hard to achieve the right balance between these goals, ”Farley added.
Anna Sturla, Elizabeth Joseph, Dakin Andone and Samuel Romano of CNN contributed to this report.