Texas doctor Hasan Gokal, who was fired and charged with theft of coronavirus doses, defended his decision, saying he would not allow the doses of vaccines to lapse and go to waste.
“It’s a province of 5 million people and we had the first 3,000 thousand doses. There was no room to throw it out. Ever,” Gokal, formerly a doctor at Texas Harris County Department of Public Health and medical director for vaccine deployment in the state, said maintenance with CBS News.
“If you have something so precious, life-saving, it will hurt you to throw it away,” he added.
The incident took place on December 29 Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg sued him shortly thereafter for stealing ten doses at a vaccination site. The charge could result in a $ 4,000 fine and one year in prison.
Gokal told CBS News that at the end of the night there were ten doses left in a vaccination site, and that he had to administer it within six hours, otherwise it would expire.
Gokal wanted to use the last ten doses and investigated all employees and police who were at the vaccination, but they already had the vaccine or refused it. He says he went to a public health official in Harris County to see if he could find ten people to administer it and the official agreed.
“At that point, I started going through my phone book and thinking about who might be ‘eligible for the vaccine,'” Gokal told CBS News.
He found nine people who were elderly or who had health conditions, which increased the risk of dying from the virus higher. In the last minutes before the vaccine expired, he vaccinated his wife because he could not find anyone else and there was only one dose left.
His wife has pulmonary sarcoidosis, a lung disease that she says qualifies for the vaccine.
“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 in a statement. “What he did was illegal and he will be held accountable under the law.”
A judge has dismissed the charges, but Ogg is still taking the case to a grand jury.