A second hospital in California has been raided for giving the Pfizer / BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to relatives of its employees – instead of using the doses for the elderly or front-line workers.
The Southern California hospital has allowed its workers to invite family members to be vaccinated – just as another hospital did last week, which drew criticism.
“The hospital planned to vaccinate all of its employees, but a large number of their staff declined and they sat on many thawed vaccines,” a woman vaccinated at the Southern California hospital told the Orange County Register said. ” They offered police officers, firefighters and first responders to be vaccinated and also told employees they could invite four family members. ‘
Culver City Hospital eventually flooded with requests from the general public and was forced to return to vaccinate frontline workers only.
A decision by a hospital to treat family members flies in the direction of the Centers for Disease Control, which requires it to be vaccinated in the later stages of vaccination of the vaccine.
Southern California Hospital is the second institution in the Golden State to provide an extra dose of vaccine to family members.
Earlier this week, a Disney worker in California boasted on Facebook that she could get the vaccine because of an in-laws who were a “major problem” at Redlands Community Hospital.
“After doctors and staff who showed interest in the vaccine were given several doses,” the hospital told the Register. ‘Since the reconstituted Pfizer vaccine needs to be used or discarded within a few hours, several doses have been administered to non-front-end healthcare workers so that valuable vaccine is not discarded.