The cancellations include appointments in the first and second doses, the majority of which affect the members in the Bay. Sutter Health confirms that the cancellation of the second dose will take precedence over the rescheduling.
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That’s the last thing 80-year-old Sean Sheik wanted to hear.
“We need to reschedule you,” Sheik said.
Sutter Health abruptly canceled its second dose of vaccine appointment on Tuesday morning and gave no opportunity to reschedule.
After arriving at Sutter Health Clinic in Santa Clara County, Sheik received a pamphlet and was told there were not enough vaccines.
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Apart from Santa Clara, viewers report the same problems in the provinces of San Francisco, San Mateo and Alameda. One writes: “On-site inspected, says all doses are canceled until further notice.”
Sutter Health has confirmed that more than 90,000 first and second dose appointments could be canceled due to a delay in shipments due to bad weather to incorrect communication from the state.
“We urgently requested the additional grants from the state to prevent the cancellation of the more than 90,000 second-dose vaccines currently in our books,” Monique Smith, with Sutter Health Communications, said. “This is an extremely unfortunate situation for our patients, and it can be avoided if we can get additional vaccine.”
Sutter added that they were urgently requesting more doses from the state and Blue Shield, claiming that the state had misunderstood their ‘inventory of first and second doses’.
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“Sutter Health’s data did not flow cleanly to the state, so the state believed for several weeks that Sutter had a large amount of doses, but this was not true,” said Blue Markovich CEO Paul Markovich. Shield, said.
He denies the company’s transition contributes to this delay, but says the first incoming dose for Sutter will arrive early next week.
“We’re going to give Sutter a lot more doses in the next few weeks so they can reschedule the appointments against them,” Markovich said.
According to Blue Shield CEO, the situation of Sutter is the reason why all suppliers need to be connected to a performance management system to keep an accurate inventory count.
So essential workers like Shiek with an immune weakening should not wait.
“We’re all going to work with a lot of fear, it’s quite a setback,” Shiek said.
ABC7 News has asked the California Department of Public Health for an explanation, but has not heard of it yet.
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