- Dr. Hasan Gokal was fired after giving 10 COVID-19 vaccine doses that would expire.
- Gokal said he tried for six hours to locate people who wanted the shot.
- The DA office in Houston later charged him with theft.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
On December 29, dr. Hasan Gokal got ready to finish the first day of the COVID-19 vaccination ride in Houston, when one last person picked up a dose before the yard would close.
It was about 6:30 pm and dark outside. The vaccination site was remote, about an hour outside of Houston in the suburb of Humble.
“There were no lights anywhere, no cars. So we had to wait another half hour to pack things up at 19:00. It was then that we would go stay,” Gokal said. “At 18:45, about 15 minutes before we switched off, we had another person drive for the vaccine. It was the problem at that point that we were done with all the vaccinations and that we had done all the vaccinations. Now another person comes up and we have to open a new vial with the vaccine. ‘
Gokal says he had to open a new vial with the Moderna vaccine, which means he had six hours to use all 11 doses before it had to be discarded. However, no one else arrived there 15 minutes before closing.
An open patch with open vaccine and no time to waste
He asked the 20 people working on site, and all said they had already been vaccinated or were not interested, Gokal said. The on-site medical emergency personnel have already left, leaving only a few police officers. They too have already received the vaccine or were not interested.
Gokal contacted the medical director of this program and a director of the Harris County Public Health Agency to let them know he was going to seek out people to vaccinate. He said both gave him a green light.
“I asked her. I said, ‘Hey, look, I have these doses left. Do you have anyone I can get them for?’ And she herself was considering her own family, ‘Gokal told Insider of the director of the Harris County County Agency Agency, whose name he did not disclose.
A week before the vaccination, Gokal said he was on a conference call where state health officials advised those working on vaccinations not to spill the vaccine. until the doses are used.
Gokal said it is stressed that no doses go to waste.
Unfortunately, none of the family members of the director of the Harris County Public Health Agency are eligible, and Gokal begins issuing acquaintances to see if he can find someone who is qualified.
Gokal lived an hour from the vaccination site. The acquaintances lived closer to him than to the vaccination site, so he got ready to drive home.
At that point, Gokal said he had two options: to leave the doses on the premises where it would expire and be discarded the next day, or to try to get them into people’s arms for the rest of his night. .
“That’s why I decided to try to find people who might be eligible. And I remember being up since 4am that morning and working all day. So I was defeated and … I did not really want to do that. “but I knew how important it was to do it. It would not suit me well if I did not try to get it from the right people,” he told Insider.
Gokal started calling acquaintances. ‘So I said: I’m basically looking for people I thought were – family members who are elderly or sick, or working in doctor’s offices, or stuff like that, who would be eligible for the next level, who would be 1B I could so ten people find what said ‘OK’. “
Home calls
When he got home, Gokal said two of the people he had to vaccinate were waiting, one person in their 60s and the other in their 70s. He gives them the shot before driving to another house.
At the next house he says he vaccinated four people. Someone in their 90s and another in their 80s who had dementia. He also vaccinated their two caregivers, who were both in their 60s.
Then Gokal said he was going to the house of an elderly woman whose neighbor called him and said she would qualify for the vaccine. She took it.
With only three shots left, Gokal said he drove back home where he expected the last three people to meet him. Two of them were already there. One was in her fifties and worked in a medical office and therefore had greater exposure, and the other was an individual in their 40s caring for a child with medical problems who was in a ventilator. Gokal gives them their shots.
“She was a sole caregiver. She did not allow anyone else into the house for fear of bringing COVID along, and she herself was terrified that her children would not survive it if she got it,” Gokal said of the woman in her 40s.
Now about midnight, the final person, an elderly man, who was meant to get the vaccine, called Gokal and said it was too late to drive out, and he would find another time to be vaccinated.
With a few minutes left before the dose would expire, Gokal turned to his wife, who has a lung condition. She was careful about whether it was a good idea.
‘The reason I asked my wife was because she’s been in and out of the hospital for the past 18 months with pulmonary sarcoidosis, which has left her breathless all the time. She uses medication for it. And our own doctor told her: look, if you get the chance to get the vaccine, you have to do it because you are at extraordinary risk. Gokal said.
He said he worked in a hospital at the beginning of the pandemic but switched to the role in public health so he would have less risk for her.
“When COVID started for the first time and I was working in the emergency room when I did not come home for a whole month, I was going to stay in a hotel because I was afraid to bring it home to her,” he said.
The next day, Gokal entered the office and submitted the ten forms about the vaccinations and told his team how he was handling the remaining doses. He said no one said anything.
A quick twist of events
Eight days later, Gokal was called in and fired by the human resources department. Before that time, he had heard nothing of the incident.
“What they told me was … they asked, ‘Did you take it and give it to friends and family?’ I said, ‘Well, guys, you know what I did, I took them and found people to be eligible for, so it would not be wasted and my wife was one of them,’ ‘ Gokal from his interaction “with an unnamed public health official.” He said, “Oh, you admitted you were fired.”
Gokal was told he was violating the protocol, but according to his lawyer, Paul Doyle, the protocols were never made clear.
Doyle said he reached out to the district attorney’s office and asked what protocols they had in their case against Dr. Gokal refers.
‘They responded to me [and said] it was a rushed event and they did not have written protocols in place at the time, and they did not have a written waiting list, “Doyle said. My answer was, of course, and it’s all in an email: ‘Under what theory do you present this case to a grand jury? And am I missing something? And the answer is no. ‘
According to Gokal, he had to bring the doses back to the office or throw them away. He said he was questioned by a public health official whose name he did not disclose as to why the names of those vaccinated sounded all ‘Indian’. He said officials were concerned that they could be accused of administering the vaccine incorrectly.
Two weeks after Gokal was fired, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said she was suing him for theft.
“He abused his position to put his friends and family in line in front of people who had gone through the legal process of being there,” Ogg said in a statement. “What he did was illegal and he will be held accountable under the law.”
The charges were dropped by criminal judge Franklin Bynum for lack of probable cause. The Texas Medical Association and the Harris County Medical Society have also released statements in support of Gokal, emphasizing that health professionals should not waste doses of the vaccine.
Gokal said the DA’s office never tried to reach out to him to hear his version of the story. He said he was accused at one point of still stealing scales of vaccines, but a story from those on hand proved that there was no shortage.
“Actually, they did not want to talk to him. They did not follow it up until they filed a sealed complaint along with the press statement with all sorts of facts that were absolutely misrepresented,” Doyle said. “It was a bizarre kind of haste to fire him and then the successor to sue him, without anyone understanding what happened.”
The DA’s office did not respond to Insider’s requests for comment.
No remorse
While Gokal says he would not change what he did, the consequences of his dismissal and subsequent criminal charges hit the world and had an impact on his family.
“On a very personal level. I’m fine with being attacked and defending myself. I’m OK. That’s part of what’s happening, but when it’s starting to hurt my loved ones, it’s the first time I’m dealing with “tears in my eyes because I realized it was not just me; it affected everyone. So it was very difficult,” Gokal said, adding that family members in Singapore, Pakistan, Dubai and various places everyone starts calling the news.
Harris County Public Health has also contacted the medical board to investigate unethical behavior. The department said it had not commented on an insider call.
As of Tuesday, the Texas Medical Board has dismissed the cases against Gokal. On March 9, the governing body sent him a letter stating that he appeared to have “administered doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to patients who were properly admitted, in the category suitable for patients, and they received doses that would otherwise have been wasted, ”reads a press release.
Gokal is out of work until it’s all sorted out. However, he spent his time as a volunteer at a charity clinic.
“I give myself time to go there and see patients and care for them while I can,” Gokal said.
“It gives me joy to do it. It’s part of what I’ve always done anyway.”