Amid assurances from major medical centers in Southern California that only health workers in the foreground receive COVID-19 vaccines, a second community hospital apparently deviated from federal guidelines and vaccinated an employee’s family member.
Officials at Southern California Hospital Culver City, formerly Redlands Community Hospital, admit they reached out to non-hospital workers when they found extra Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine doses that would otherwise have expired. However, they insist that the first reactions for the extra doses are directed at the 420 bed facilities.
Elsewhere, officials at other medical facilities across the region have indicated that they strictly follow the recommendations of disease control centers to offer only the vaccine and extra doses found in some vials to frontline workers.
“We really kept the line and made sure frontline workers go first,” said Krist Azizian, chief pharmacist at Keck Medicine of USC, with about 9,000 employees. “We do not offer it to family members of our staff.”
Time is of the essence in the distribution of the Pfizer vaccine, which must be stored at a temperature of -94 degrees Fahrenheit and administered shortly after thawing, or it will go to waste.
Staff refuse vaccine
A former national leader in emergency management, who asked not to be identified, said this week that a family member working at the Southern California hospital had just before Christmas invited members of her family to Pfizer vaccines at the facility to receive.
The woman provided the Southern California News Group with text messages from the hospital pointing out her appointment and subsequent vaccination. She will return to the hospital in January to receive a second dose of vaccination.
“The hospital planned to vaccinate all of their staff, but a large number of their staff declined and they sat on many thawed vaccines,” the woman said, explaining what the hospital staff told her. “They offered police officers, firefighters and first responders to be vaccinated and also told employees they could invite four family members.”
The hospital was soon overwhelmed by those pushing for the extra doses of Pfizer, forcing the facility to stop offering vaccines to family members and instead focus largely on first responders, the woman said.
No time for new distribution plan
The woman praised the Southern California hospital for taking swift action to ensure the vaccines are not wasted.
“Faced with thawed vaccines that could not be frozen, and no emergency plan, doctors made the choice to vaccinate people they could,” she said. ‘This is what doctors do to save lives. This is what happens in disasters. Situations are constantly flowing and people need to make decisions to save as many lives as possible within their current capacity. Hospitals are overwhelmed to save lives and do not have time to stop and create a new vaccine distribution plan for a small amount of vaccine that will expire soon. ”
Southern California Hospital denies family members of employees were invited to the facility to receive the Pfizer vaccine, spokeswoman Laura M. Gilbert said.
After hospital staff picked up frozen vaccines at a distribution center last week, they quickly realized that the amount of doses exceeded the number of employees at the facility.
“The remains could not be returned to the distribution center,” she said in an email. “The instructions given with the vaccine indicated that the vaccine has a shelf life of five days when it is removed from the approved freezer. The distribution center indicated that the vaccine should not be stored in dry ice or freezers. All the vaccine had to be used or gone within five days. ”
After vaccinating all hospital staff who requested the vaccine, staff contacted doctors treating patients at the facility, as well as local first responders, including police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians to inform them of the vaccine’s availability, according to Gilbert. In addition, some civil servants were also vaccinated.
“This decisive action has ensured that we have achieved our goal of vaccinating all front-line staff as quickly as possible and preventing the waste of valuable vaccine,” Gilbert said.
‘A reasonable explanation’
The Southern California hospital appears to have handled the situation properly, said Andrew Noymer, associate professor of public health at UC Irvine.
“It seems like a reasonable statement,” he added. “If they really got more vaccinations than they could use, it’s not really their fault.”
Dr. However, David D. Lo, senior co-dean of research at the UC Riverside School of Medicine, disagrees.
“They do not exactly deny that family members were vaccinated, but only that they were not invited,” he said. “It also gave no indication that they were planning their vaccination strategy.”
In a separate incident, a 33-year-old woman from Riverside recently boasted on Facebook that she was vaccinated at Redlands Community Hospital on December 20 because her husband’s aunt, who works at the facility, had extra doses that would expire. .
“Science is basically my religion, so that was a big deal for me,” the woman said in a Facebook post.
Redlands Community said in a statement that the extra doses are being administered to healthcare workers so that the valuable vaccine is not thrown away.
However, the hospital did not explain how the woman, who works for Disney and apparently is not a medical worker, was able to get the vaccine.
Smooth roll out for others
Many hospitals in Southern California have been planning and preparing for months to distribute COVID-19 vaccines, along with excess doses.
At Keck Hospital of USC and the affiliated USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, approximately 8,825 doses of Pfizer vaccine are provided to approximately 3,300 physicians, nurses, and support staff, Azizian said. Nearly 6,000 remaining employees are waiting or they need to plan vaccinations.
Cynthia Smith, a spokeswoman for Keck Medicine, who has not yet turned up much, offers vaccinations to about 400 front-line workers daily. About 15 percent of the vaccines already delivered to Keck Medicine contain an extra dose that helps speed up and maximize vaccination, Azizian said.
“We can vaccinate more individuals to hopefully reach our goal faster,” he added.
Officials from UCLA Health, Long Beach Memorial Hospital and Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley also said the extra doses of Pfizer are being distributed to staff who come into regular contact and treat COVID-19 patients.
Loma Linda University Medical Center uses the extra doses to systematically work through its distribution plan before receiving the vaccinations, said dr. April Wilson, a specialist in preventive medicine, said.
“The plan gives priority to those caring for patients with COVID-19, and within the group, those at greatest risk by age, they then move to gradually younger age groups,” she said. “After that, we offered the vaccine to those who were in-house units, and then gave patient care. The extra doses enabled us to make it further under the priority list “
Spokesman John Murray vaccinated nearly 6,000 employees at UCI Medical Center through scheduled appointments or staff visits to their workplace to deliver doses.
“This approach ensures that doses are or will be available to all UCI Health employees who want them, and that doses are only offered to those who work for our health system,” he said. “Fortunately, the additional doses per vial of the Pfizer vaccine have enabled us to vaccinate even more of our staff faster than we expected.”