One of Pennsylvania’s largest health networks has allowed the relatives of employees to skip the COVID-19 vaccine line, raising questions about fairness during strong public demand and scarce supply.
Geisinger’s decision to grant special access to employees ‘family members was reprimanded this week by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, which said the health care giant should not hold vaccine clinics for eligible employees’ family members. .
“DOH has been in contact with the provider to ensure that they continue to follow the agreement they signed, or run the risk of losing access to the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine,” said Maggi Barton, spokeswoman for the department. health, said.
The state agency said it was unaware that Geisinger had arranged for family members to be vaccinated until warned by The Associated Press.
Geisinger said that since the family members who received the shots met the requirements of the state, it did not have to tell the health department that it made the vaccine available to them. Geisinger also insisted that the state’s guidelines for the admission and administration of vaccines be followed, saying: “we have never been informed that our vaccination program could be in jeopardy.”
Geisinger, which has 24,000 employees spread across central and northeastern Pennsylvania, held vaccination clinics for three consecutive Sundays in late January and early February. Each employee was allowed to bring two family members along, as long as they were eligible for the phased vaccination from the state, Geisinger admitted in response to an AP investigation. Family members do not have to live with the employee to qualify, the health system said.
About 3600 family members of Geisinger employees were vaccinated under the program. No additional family member vaccination clinics for employees have been scheduled.
“The situation in mid-January was very different from where we stand today,” Geisinger spokesman Matthew Van Stone said. At the time, he said, Geisinger had adequate vaccinations, and ‘we felt that opening Sundays for employees and up to two Phase 1A-eligible family members would make it easier for the community to find appointments throughout the week.’
It is unclear whether members of the public lost appointments due to doses given to family members.
But the vaccine clinics have allowed family members to avoid the frustrating, tedious and often fruitless hunt for an appointment that has plagued the state’s early implementation and led to widespread complaints among Pennsylvania residents. The state is among the country’s lowest ranking in how effectively it vaccinates the population.
“Even if their intentions are good, we should not use vaccines as a benefit to friends and family,” said Gabriel Lázaro-Muñoz, a professor in the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. “It was just prioritizing the wrong people at the wrong time.”
The health system, which has nine hospitals and a 550,000-member health plan, provided family members at the same time, while the newly expanded fitness arrangements caused an increase in demand in the country.
Geisinger’s first weekend clinic was held on January 24. This was five days after the state had people aged 65 and older and younger people with high-risk medical conditions qualify for the vaccine. Geisinger said at the time that the huge demand for vaccine appointments was characterized by a very high call volume and online traffic.
Linda Thorne, 65, who works in her family’s pizzeria, said she has been trying for weeks to get an appointment with Geisinger, but the health system is not planning the first dose of appointments.
“It’s really frustrating,” she said. ‘I see all these people my age getting really sick, and it’s scary. I do not want to end up in the hospital. ”
“I don’t think it’s fair,” Thorne said Geisinger housed family members because of the scarce supply of vaccine.
Other major health networks, including UPMC and Penn State Health, have said they do not make separate arrangements for family members of employees to be vaccinated.
“Absolutely not,” said Brian Downs, a spokesman for Lehigh Valley Health Network. “We follow the (state) Phase 1A guidelines and are on from the start.”
The Department of Health said Geisinger did not violate the letter of his supplier agreement with the state, but that we hope suppliers will not prioritize employee families over eligible community members, said Barry Ciccocioppo, spokesman for the state. department, said.
According to federal guidelines, people in the same class must be eligible to stand a chance. The guidelines also state that no one should be harmed “due to social position or other socially determined circumstances.”
Nancy Kass, deputy director of public health at the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University, said that if Geisinger used the family member program as a way to give more vaccines to populations, she would consider it an ‘extremely smart strategy’. to increase equity.
“If it’s just an advantage, it’s not appropriate,” she said.
Kass said that while the Geisinger program is problematic, the deployment of the national vaccine as a whole was unfair because it rewards some people over others – especially those with the time and computer skills to find an open appointment.
Geisinger said the employee and family member did not participate in the Sunday clinics, and that they began using Sundays to vaccinate patients who needed their appointments due to bad weather or delays during dispatch.
Geisinger’s vaccination of family members was a relatively small part of the general program. By Monday, the health system had administered more than 112,000 doses of vaccines.
Geisinger’s public vaccination sites are in the town of Jenkins, Jersey Shore, Danville and Lewistown.