Dr Hasan Gokal decided to give away ten doses of the COVID-19 vaccine that was about to spill, according to what he thought was the responsible decision. All that next came was an “absolute, utter shock” and “unexpectedly unexpected,” he told CBS News.
The Houston doctor worked as an emergency response physician in Texas in the Harris County Division of the Office of Preparedness. He was also the medical director of the COVID-19 vaccination for the country.
In late December last year, he oversaw a vaccination event for emergency services workers – the province’s first public vaccination event, he said. Within two weeks, he was fired and charged with theft for his actions that night.
When the event came to an end, one last person showed up for a shot. Thus, a new vial of the Moderna vaccine containing 11 doses was pierced to administer the vaccine, which activated the six-hour period for the ten remaining doses.
The remaining ten doses had to be armed within six hours, otherwise it had to be discarded because it expired. Gokal said he is determined not to waste them. ‘It’s a province of 5 million people and we had the first 3000 thousand doses. There was no room to throw anything away. Ever, ‘he said. “If you have something so precious, life-saving, it would hurt you to throw it away.”
Gokal said his first reaction was to offer the doses to the workers of the event, but they had already been vaccinated or decreased. Emergency workers have already left the site and the police officers there have already received the vaccine or said they want to wait before taking it.
With no other options, Gokal charged a Harris County public health official with the operations to share his plan to find ten people and administer the remaining doses. He said he was told to go for it.
Because the occasion was the first time Harris County had begun vaccinating the public, Gokal said there was no protocol from the country he could follow at that time: ‘They do not exist. It was a new scenario … You do not have priority over this, ‘he said.
Thanks to Hasan Gokal
But he said there was guidance from the Texas Department of Health Services to always be eligible for people at that level if there are remaining vaccine doses at the end of a shift. If you do not find someone who is eligible, you need to find someone who is willing to accept it. The agency’s message, according to Gokal, was clear: “We do not want to waste any doses. Period.”
“At that point, I start by going through my phone list and thinking about who” might fall under category 1 (b) (people over 65 or with a health condition that increases the risk of serious Covid-related illness), the dr. Gokal said.
He scrambled to find ten people who met the state’s vaccination requirements. Some were acquaintances; others, strangers. Among them were two women in their 70s. Two elderly women bedridden. Their children in their 70s and who suffered from medical conditions also got the shot. Gokal said a mother with a child using a ventilator, for whom the detection of the virus could be ‘death sentence’.
After midnight, and just 20 minutes before the vaccine expired, the last person to receive it was canceled. Gokal said he was faced with two options: to throw the last dose away, or to administer 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 intended to give one of his family members a chance unless it was through the “appropriate channels” – but given the unusual circumstances he gave the last dose to his wife .
He handed in the paperwork to the ten people he had vaccinated the next morning at work, and he was transparent about what had happened to his colleagues and supervisor the previous day. A week later, he was fired.
Human resources told him he had to give back the remaining doses, even if it meant throwing them away. Gokal, who emigrated from Pakistan at the age of 10, said human resources also questioned the lack of ‘fairness’ among the list of people he had vaccinated, 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 terminated, the doctor found out that he had been charged with theft and that he was accused of violating provincial protocols, by Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg.
“He abused his position to put his friends and family in line in front of people who had gone through the legal process of being there,” Ogg said. She said a week passed before he told a public health worker in Harris County, who then reported him to supervisors. ‘
A judge later dismissed the charges. According to the judge’s ruling, “the affidavit was riddled with negligence and errors,” the state noted that he did not “sufficiently claim that the plaintiff had a greater right to the vaccination than the defendant, who according to the admission of the member ‘medical adviser for the COVID-19 response.’ “
The district attorney still intends to take a case to a large jury. Gokal’s lawyers expect this to take place in the next two weeks. If he is charged, he could face up to a year in prison.
Gokal’s lawyer, Paul Doyle, said when he requested copies of the written protocols and waiting list referred to in the complaint, a prosecutor told him that there was not one, nor a suitable waiting list.
In an email, District Attorney Director Dane Schiller said the office could not comment on the case, but referred CBS News to the indictment..
Gokal said he gets tears in his eyes every time he recounts the moment he found out that charges had been filed against him.
The hardest thing he had to deal with, he said, was noticing the consequences of his loved ones: his wife was struggling to sleep and her condition was deteriorating. His children are now struggling to focus on their schoolwork: “It was just devastating,” he said.
“When I’m in the ER, and when there’s a question mark over what’s the right thing to do, human life always trumps any policy issue. No one ever questions it,” said Gokal, who has a background in emergency medicine. said. Now, he says, he’s dealing with the consequences of not wasting a vaccine in the midst of a pandemic.
Gokal said he hopes his experience will not lead to other doctors losing their moral compass and that they should not do the right thing when making decisions.
“It’s a shame I was the first one on the scene with this kind of situation and not a few along the line, when they realized it had to 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 comprehend any justification to charge any well-intentioned physician in this situation of a criminal offense,” the statement read.
Regardless of the outcome of the legal process, Gokal fears for his career.
The accusation ‘made Dr. Gokal’s looks horrible worldwide ‘, his lawyer said, tarnishing a career he’s spent two decades on.
“Everyone read the first story and the first reaction was, ‘It was vaccines for my parents, grandparents and frontline workers. How dare he steal it?'” Doyle said.
For now, Gokal is spending his time as a volunteer at a charity clinic.
“Since the only alternative is to throw the vaccines away, I would not have done anything else,” Gokal said. “I would not be a good doctor if I regretted doing so.”