Reassign the first vaccine shipments – VG

STIG OPDØHL, Chief Physician at Skien Hospital for Acute and Emergency Medicine, specialist in General Medicine

The COVID19 vaccine has arrived in Norway, the prioritization of who will be vaccinated is completely wrong. We have a very limited number of vaccines available in Norway, and the group that gets vaccinated first are residents of nursing homes and the chronically ill. This is wrong and goes against the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO).

I am Chief Medical Officer in Acute and Emergency Medicine, specialist in General Medicine and employed at Telemark HF Hospital, Skien department. Our catchment area is among the regions with the highest infection pressure in Norway now, apart from the central-eastern part of Norway. I work in the emergency room. I am responsible for all patients admitted to the hospital under my supervision, whether they are infected with COVID19 or not.

The emergency room is the gateway to the hospital. There are between 40 and 50 nurses, four chief doctors and about 20 doctors working in education and specialization.

None of us have a vaccination priority below two million. This means that two million people in Norway will be vaccinated before us, who are on the front line against this pandemic.

We are exposed to infections on a daily basis from receiving COVID19 infected patients, but we are also exposed to potential infections from other patients who come with other diseases such as heart attack, stroke, appendicitis, pneumonia, bone fractures, overdoses, accidents, etc.

There have been several incidents where a single patient has infected hospital staff, but even more incidents where around 20 healthcare staff members are quarantined at the same time after exposure to a COVID19-infected patient. This affects the functioning of all hospitals and hits us especially because we are a small hospital.

We have a limited number of rapid tests to detect COVID19, so the criteria to evaluate patients at admission are strict, they must have symptoms of infection to be evaluated. We can’t test everyone. We cannot know with 100 percent certainty that we will not admit a symptom-free COVID19 patient to hospital wards.

All health professionals on the front line against the COVID19 pandemic must now be vaccinated.

Without us, no one can treat those who get sick in Norway. I am thinking not only of those with COVID19 infection, but of all those with illnesses and injuries that need treatment by the health system.

WHO has clearly issued guidelines for vaccination priorities. In case of limited access to vaccines, health personnel should be vaccinated first. Bent Høie and the government have established their own house rules. They have decided that nursing home residents and vulnerable groups should get vaccinated first. The first vaccine was given at the Ellingsrudhjemmet nursing home, where the first resident of the nursing home was infected with COVID19. Erna Solberg and Bent Høie were eager bystanders from their own offices, probably six feet from their closest colleague, and were not in direct contact with a COVID19-infected patient like us. This is a game for the gallery.

The first vaccine was to be placed on the upper arm of an invaluable healthcare worker.

I would ask the government to reassign the first shipments of vaccines, from patients in nursing homes, where 30 percent die within six months of admission from some condition, to health workers, who will treat all diseases and all injuries in the population of Norway.

This is the correct priority in a pandemic.