California medical staff gave COVID-19 vaccines to relatives instead of healthcare workers

At least two hospitals in Southern California have been found to be vaccinating relatives of employees working in facilities, many of whom are not involved in health care.

Redlands Community Hospital in Culver City said it was left with an ‘extra’ dose of the Pfizer / Bioentech vaccine and therefore reached out to people who did not work at the medical center.

The hospital claims that the vaccine dose would otherwise have expired and insists that all first-responders working in the 420-bed facility be given first aid.

A relative working at Southern California Hospital, but did not want to be identified, said family members had been invited to receive the Pfizer vaccine.

The woman told the Orange Range County Register, “The hospital planned to vaccinate all of its employees, but a large number of its employees refused and they sat on lots of dissolved vaccines.”

“They offered to vaccinate police officers, firefighters and first responders and also told staff that they could invite four family members.”

He will return to the hospital in a few weeks to take a second dose of the vaccine.

But despite trying to keep extra inoculations for family members, people rushed to the hospital quickly asking for shingles for extra Pfizer doses.

Relatives at the hospital were forced to stop vaccinating and only return to focus on the first responders.

However, federal guidelines put together by disease control centers outline the vaccination program, stating that relatives should be treated much later in the vaccine rollout.

Some hospital boards openly state that they are following the rules of the letter.

“We’re really holding the line and making sure the frontline workers come first,” said Christ Azizian, chief pharmacy officer at USC Cake Medicine, which has about 9,000 workers in the OC register. ‘We don’t give it to our staff family members.’

Any excess, the hospital says, goes to the frontline workers.

The main point of the Pfizer vaccine is that it should be stored at a temperature of -94 degrees Fahrenheit and should be taken out of the freezer as soon as possible, handled as soon as possible, or it will go to waste.

The woman, who was vaccinated as soon as possible despite not being a frontline worker, praised the hospital’s actions, saying nothing was in vain.

“Faced with melted, expired vaccines that can’t be re-stabilized, and since there were no contingency plans, the doctors chose to vaccinate as many people as they could,” he said.

‘That’s what doctors do, save lives. The same thing happens in disasters. Conditions remain in constant flux and people have to make command decisions to save as many lives as possible in their current capacity. Hospitals are overwhelmed to save lives and there is no time to plan and create a new vaccine distribution for the few vaccines that are about to run out. ‘

Southern California Hospital has denied that employees’ relatives were invited to receive the Pfizer vaccine.

Andrew Numer, an associate professor of public health at UC Irwin, says it looks like Southern California Hospital handled the situation properly,

‘It seems like a reasonable explanation, if they get more vaccinations than they can actually use, it’s not really their fault.’

The hospital explained via email, ‘No more amount could be returned to the distribution center.

‘The instructions provided with the vaccine indicate that the vaccine has a shelf life of five days when removed from a valid freezer. The distribution center indicated that the vaccine should not be stored in dry ice or transport freezers. All vaccines were to be used in five days or the waste had to be disposed of, ‘said spokeswoman Laura Gilbert.

‘After inoculating all the hospital staff requesting the vaccine, the staff contacted the physicians treating the patients at the facility, as well as local people including police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians to inform them of the availability of the vaccine. In addition, some public service workers were also vaccinated.

“With this decisive step, we have made sure that we have achieved our goal of vaccinating all frontline employees as quickly as possible, and prevent valuable vaccine waste,” Gilbert said.

The senior associate dean of research at UC Riverside School of Medicine, Dr. “They do not deny at all that the family members of the employees were vaccinated, only they were not invited,” said David de Lo. Said David de Lowe. ‘Furthermore, this does not indicate that they actually developed their vaccination strategy.’

A 33-year-old claim last year at Redlands Community Hospital claimed that her husband’s aunt, who works at the facility, had been vaccinated, with some additional doses due to expire.

The woman said in a Facebook post, ‘Science is basically my religion, so this was a big deal for me.’

The Redlands community says non-frontline healthcare workers were vaccinated because the hospital has an overdose and wants to make sure the vaccine is not thrown away.

The woman was not a healthcare worker either and was usually employed by Disney.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump blamed the slow rollout of Covid-19 vaccines on the states as he praised the “successful” distribution of doses by his administration amid growing reaction to the disastrous program.

Trump responded to harsh criticism of the vaccine rollout on Friday after new data was released in just a quarter of the shots distributed in the states since early December.

As of New Year’s Day, 3.17 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been given. That’s only 25 percent of the 12.4 million doses delivered to states, according to Bloomberg’s analysis.

However, Trump has defended his administration’s efforts, saying it is the states that are moving at a slower pace when it comes to population vaccinations.

‘Some states are very slow in inoculating recipients despite successful and very large-scale distribution of vaccines by the federal government. They will complete! Trump said on Twitter.

The tweet appeared to be in response to Senator Mitt Romney and President-elect Joe Biden, both of whom spoke harshly about the clumsy attempt to distribute the vaccine hours earlier.

In an emotional statement released Friday, Romney, a Republican but frequent Trump critic, warned that delays would be “fatal” if the government did not urgently adopt a new strategy to speed up vaccination efforts.

“Those comprehensive vaccination plans have not been developed at the federal level and have been sent to the states because the models are as incomprehensibly useless,” Romney said in a statement. Was like Trump. .

“It was unrealistic to assume that the already overcrowded health care workers could take on a massive vaccination program with the care of Covid,” Romney said.

The senator also highlighted the fact that the program is “badly lagging behind” despite the fact that it only targets frontline workers and long-term care residents – “two easy populations for vaccination”.

He called on the government to include “every medical professional, retired or active, who are not currently engaged in the distribution of care” in the government-run crash program of vaccination sites across the country.

“This could include veterinarians, combat veterinarians and corpsmen, medical students, EMS professionals, first responders, and many others who could be trained to carry vaccines easily,” he proposed.

Romney also proposed a plan to schedule vaccinations according to a person’s preferred category and date of birth: for example, in a group with a first birthday in January, people will be assigned a specific day for their vaccination.

Referring to his experience overseeing the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Romney also included what could be seen as a pitch to support the Biden administration, saying: Nothing on the basis of what is being said. ‘