Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Thursday cut off the flow of COVID-19 vaccines to West Side’s Loretto Hospital, hours after hospital administrators admitted for the second time this week that they had made ‘mistakes’ to people who were not yet in was not allowed to allow access to vaccines.
Loretto admitted on Thursday that he had made a mistake – his second admission in a week – after WBEZ reports that 13 judges of the Circuit Court in Cook County was offered the opportunity on March 8 to obtain coronavirus vaccines at the hospital in the Austin area.
This followed Loretto’s mea culpa afterwards Block Club Chicago first revealed that health care the supplier mistakenly gave COVID-19 vaccines to workers at the Trump Tower in downtown Chicago, far from the hospital that serves mostly black and low-income patients on the West Side.
The hospital promised to repeat the scenarios, but it was apparently too late to prevent the city’s dramatic response to the alleged favoring of vaccinations by Loretto.
In a statement, Lightfoot cites recent “stories” about healthcare providers who ‘allowed individuals who are well connected to each other to have the chance to receive the vaccine, instead of using people who are more in need.’
“Our city will not tolerate vendors who blatantly disregard the Chicago Department of Public Health’s distribution guidelines for the COVID-19 vaccine,” Lightfoot said, threatening similar actions against other vendors caught violating the rules. .
And administration officials said Loretto could give second and final doses of the vaccine to those who received their first shot there, but the hospital will not receive any first doses from the city next week and until we can find their vaccination strategies and reporting practices. confirm all [city health department] requirements. ”
As with the Trump Tower vaccinations, Loretto initially defended to give the judges a chance at vaccination – as well as their spouses or another “second person” of each judge’s choice, according to an email sent to WBEZ got.
On Thursday, however, George President, president and CEO of Loretto, erroneously issued a statement claiming that judges are allowed to get vaccines under a Phase 1b portion of the city of Chicago, ‘vaccination plan’, which allows shots now can go to town. elected officials.
In fact, public health department officials have confirmed that the ongoing Phase 1b does not include judges. Being a judge alone, someone will not be eligible for COVID-19 shots until the next phase, which begins on March 29th.
The hospital said in a statement Thursday that it had misinterpreted the city’s guidelines and promised to do its best not to repeat its mistakes in the Trump Tower and vaccinations.
The city’s current vaccination group, 1b, covers people aged 65 and over and ‘essential workers’ such as teachers, firefighters and public transport workers.
‘I can only apologize for the wrong mistake yesterday, because it was an indication of an existing confusion among medical teams in Loretto and other facilities regarding the nuances and differences between the city and the state’s requirements for 1b and 1b +, ” a spokesman for the hospital. told WBEZ on Thursday. “This is not an excuse for mistakes made.”
Spokeswoman Bonni Pear also said the chief executive and other hospital leaders are working with Democratic State Representative LaShawn Ford – whose district includes Loretto and who is on the board of trustees – to step up controls to ensure strict compliance. . the city’s vaccination plan and “avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.”
Ford criticized Loretto for the vaccination offer to the Trump Tower workers and the judges. But on Thursday he said the foot of Lightfoot ‘cut off nose to defy our face’.
“The city should investigate the actions at Loretto Hospital, but the community should not be cut off during the pandemic,” Ford told WBEZ. ‘The need is great and progress is being made with the work of Loretto Hospital. There may be clear directions from the city, but the city should not lose momentum. ”
The sentiment was echoed Thursday night by the powerful union SEIU Healthcare Illinois, which represents a number of workers at Loretto.
“We strongly oppose the Chicago Department of Public Health’s decision to withhold vaccine doses from a safety net serving high- and underserved black and brown communities,” union president Greg Kelley said in a statement.
Kelley pointed out that Loretto was involved in the city’s Protect Chicago Plus program, which aimed to vaccinate the city’s Black and Latino residents hardest hit by the pandemic.
‘Workers at Loretto’s have already sacrificed enough during their pandemic in a safety net hospital in the Austin needy community. It is crucial that the Council confines its affirmative action to the two individuals responsible for this decay, and does not punish workers and the community they serve. ”
In December, Lightfoot held an event in Loretto, where health workers were the first people in Chicago to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Loretto is a small hospital on the West Side of Chicago. The majority of Loretto’s patients are black and low-income, and the COVID-19 pandemic has affected black people and Latinos in Chicago and elsewhere excessively.
The mayor’s drastic response to Loretto’s favor in the distribution of vaccines came at a time when many people already eligible to be vaccinated are struggling to secure appointments for the shots, due to high demand and limited amount of doses.
This is all also because the state said this week that it intends to open vaccinations for everyone aged 16 and older in less than a month, eliminating eligible groups. But Chicago has stuck to the rules to vaccinate the most at-risk people – including the elderly, front-line workers and people in communities hit excessively by COVID-19 – before making broad appointments.
In the March 8 email that WBEZ received, Diann Marsalek – the acting judge in the traffic department of the country system – invited 13 other judges to book appointments at Loretto for themselves, their spouses or another person they wanted bring for shots of the Pfizer. vaccine.
The 13 judges who received the Marsalek email invitation were: William Sullivan, Susanne Groebner, Celia Gamrath, Michael Hogan, Athanasios Sianis, Krista Butler, Cara Smith, Daniel Tiernan, Lindsay Huge, Lynn Weaver Boyle, Patricia Sheahan, Clare Quish and Joe Panarese.
It is unclear whether one of them got the shots through the offer or took others along for vaccinations at Loretto. WBEZ sent messages to all 13 judges and none of them wanted to comment. Loretto’s CEO, Miller, said the federal health protection law prevents him from discussing specific issues.
Another judge told WBEZ that he was vaccinated at Loretto last month, even though he is only 61 years old and the hospital originally told him he was not eligible.
Since the pandemic began a year ago, judges have mostly been working online. Judges made chairman almost 1.5 million hours court proceedings over Zoom over the past year, officials said.
The spokeswoman for Timothy Evans, the chief justice of the circuit court, defended the vaccinations of judges and their spouses, saying the doses that went to them would otherwise go to waste. The hospital has never made such an allegation.
Dan Mihalopoulos is an investigative reporter for WBEZ’s government and politics team. Cook County Reporter Kristen Schorsch contributed information to this story.