A website designed to enable health professionals to sign up for an appointment to receive the COVID-19 vaccine through the Medical University of South Carolina went viral this week, allowing anyone with access to the link, can make an appointment regardless of whether they are eligible.
MUSC spokeswoman Heather Woolwine said the reporting site was originally sent to community health care providers, such as dentists, ophthalmologists and physiotherapists, to enable their employees to get vaccinated through the hospital. Healthcare professionals are considered as part of phase 1A in the vaccination of the vaccine, which gives them access to the vaccine in front of other high-risk groups.
Woolwine said MUSC trusts an honorary system and trusts that these outside health care providers will not send the sign-up link to friends and family. But it necessarily happened. She did not know how many people in the community who were not eligible through Phase 1A could already get a vaccine through MUSC. It remains unclear whether these people who were not technically eligible, but in any case received the first shot, will be given the second amplifier.
But to move forward, everyone will have to provide proof of their work in health care by appointment, she said.
Some patients who have already made an appointment to receive the COVID-19 vaccine were emailed by MUSC on Thursday explaining that they must ‘show credentials to verify that they qualify’. Those who cannot prove that they are part of Phase 1A, “will not be vaccinated (and will be asked to return with evidence at their earliest convenience.”
“The benefit of this is that it’s people who want to get the vaccine. That’s a good thing. We want people to get the vaccine,” Woolwine said. “The concern is supply and demand.”
Catherine Templeton, a one-time director of the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control under former Gov. Nikki Haley, said her parents made appointments in their 70s through the MUSC website for a COVID-19 vaccine and were released Wednesday. rejected. . They could not be eligible under Phase 1A.
“I believe we need to prioritize groups, but the aircraft analogy is right and restricting the vaccination administration to hospitals is dangerous,” Templeton said. “Their model is to treat acute emergencies, not to prevent a public health crisis. All our energy must be focused on setting up refrigerators in every street corner and vaccinating anyone who will pass by.”
Templeton argues that the problem is not MUSC’s website, it’s the fact that DHEC has ‘knee-jerked’ the process and that available vaccines go to waste.
“It’s not MUSC’s fault,” she said. “It’s DHEC’s fault.”
Like MUSC, Roper St. Francis is also vaccinating Phase 1A workers in the community who are not directly employed by the health care system, such as paramedics, Hospital spokeswoman Andy Lyons said.
Roper St. Francis uses an external site to enable these health workers to sign up for a vaccination appointment, but the site is not widely shared, he said, making it clear that the only people eligible for ‘ a COVID-19 vaccine. At present, health workers or those working in a health care environment are like staff of medical offices.
Roper St. Francis also uses a range of checkpoints, Lyons said, to ensure that those who receive the vaccine qualify for it. Some people were turned away from their appointments because they did not qualify, but he described the cases as ‘not a big problem’. He said the hospital system is now weighing extra measures to ensure that the rules for implementation are followed.
Trident Health has so far only vaccinated its employees. Spokesman Rod Whiting said the hospital system expects a broader group of health workers who qualify under Phase 1A to be vaccinated next week. He said the specific start date and number of vaccines available would be determined by DHEC’s “ability to fulfill our order for additional vaccine.”
Meanwhile, some independent health professionals who are not affiliated with a hospital system but are eligible for a vaccine during phase 1A have not succeeded.
Dr. Dede Waring, an endocrinologist in North Charleston, explained that she has been working with DHEC since mid-December to get her doctor partners and their staff vaccinated.
“The independent doctors are available in this 1A vaccination to take care of themselves,” Waring said. “We were transferred for the initial allocation of vaccines while our hospital-related colleagues received their boosters. We met every DHEC requirement to administer vaccines to ourselves and our staff and were ‘approved’ by their program. Unfortunately, we no idea what that means or when we will receive our vaccine protection. It is unacceptable. “
Waring said Thursday she learned from the Charleston County Medical Society that her office was run by Roper St. Francis can sign up at signupgenius.com for vaccinations. She expects them to get their shots on Friday.
Government Henry McMaster on Tuesday issued a deadline instructing all health workers eligible for a vaccine during Phase 1A to report one or “get in the back of the queue.”
Reach Lauren Sausser at 843-937-5598.