Kaiser Permanente members in Marin County are unhappy about the rate at which they were able to get appointments for vaccinations.
Matt Willis, the Marin County Public Health Officer, said last week that Marin’s public health and the province’s other hospitals will begin vaccinating residents aged 65 and older on Monday, but that Kaiser will only have residents of at least the end of February 75 years and older will be vaccinated.
Kaiser CEO Greg Adams acknowledged the problem and blamed the vaccine shortage.
“We have received inquiries about our preparation and we have heard that you are concerned about the limited number of available vaccine appointments,” Adams said in an email sent to members late last month.
Kaiser has the capability and is willing to administer more than 200,000 vaccines a week in California, he said.
However, he added: ‘We currently receive a total of approximately 40,000 vaccine doses per week in California. ”
On February 4, Kaiser sent an email to members saying, ‘We are still advocating for more vaccine doses from the state of California and will expand the appropriate groups as soon as possible. If you can vaccinate anywhere outside of Kaiser Permanente, such as your employer, your local health department or any other approved vaccine, we encourage you to do so. ”
“My husband is 75 and we can not get a vaccine appointment at Kaiser,” Fairfax’s Shae Irving said in an email.
Irving said their Kaiser doctor suggested they try to schedule an appointment at Marin’s public vaccination center at the civic center, or, if not, seek an appointment for vaccination in a neighboring country.
Provincial public health and Marin’s hospitals – Kaiser’s San Rafael Medical Center, MarinHealth Medical Center and Novato Community Hospital, operated by Sutter Health – receive their own vaccine supplies through the state.
Irving said her husband, Stewart Cubley, filled out an online form to receive a vaccination through the county, but, unlike others, received no response. The form contains a question that is asked that ‘best describes you’, a member of Sutter Health, a MarinHealth clinic patient, MediCal, none of the above and insured, or none of the above and uninsured.
Willis said the province is not investigating Kaiser members. He said at least 30% of the people vaccinated at the province’s civic center were Kaiser members.
“Kaiser is moving as fast as they can and their schedule is full,” Willis said. “People will flock to where the vaccine is available.”
However, he added: “Ideally, because Kaiser receives its own award, we encourage Kaiser members to be vaccinated by Kaiser.
‘The gatekeeping takes place on the site,’ says Willis, ‘where we say if you are a Kaiser member, you should do it. This is not a must; it’s a must. ‘
The province is discussing some vaccinations for Latino residents aged 75 and older, and for other residents aged 75 and older who have higher-risk medical conditions.
A disproportionate number of Latino residents in Marin contracted COVID-19, although the mortality rate in the Latino community due to coronavirus is slightly lower than 16% of the population for which they are responsible.
Willis said more than half of Marin’s population, about 130,000 people, are Kaiser members. However, he said the state’s allocation of vaccines to Kaiser did not reflect that fact.
“It’s a smaller allocation than they would need to keep up with the rest of the province,” Willis said. “This is one of the reasons why our Kaiser members are not preventing themselves from being vaccinated with Marin doses for public health.”
Kaiser spokesman Matt Skryja issued a statement on Thursday saying, “What limits the appointments is the very limited amount of vaccine that California receives from the federal government. Our allocations do not match the percentage of eligible population for which we are responsible.
‘In Northern California, the statement went on,’ we have more than 270,000 members over the age of 75 and yet we only receive an average of 25,000 doses per week, which is also used to vaccinate the health care worker population. We received just enough to vaccinate 4.5% of our California members. ”