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Jumping line covid vaccine4/20/2023 ![]() “This decisive action ensured we achieved our goal of vaccinating all frontline staff as quickly as possible, and prevented the waste of valuable vaccine,” Gilbert said. Additionally, some public service workers were also vaccinated. All the vaccine had to be used within five days or go to waste.”Īfter inoculating all hospital employees who requested the vaccine, staff contacted physicians who treat patients at the facility, as well as local first-responders, including police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians to inform them of the vaccine’s availability, according to Gilbert. The distribution center indicated the vaccine was not to be stored in dry ice or transport freezers. “Instructions provided with the vaccine indicated that the vaccine has a shelf life of five days when removed from the approved freezer. “The excess could not be returned to the distribution center,” she said in an email. Gilbert said.Īfter hospital staff members picked up frozen vaccines from a distribution center last week, they quickly realized the amount of doses exceeded the number of employees at the facility, she said Southern California Hospital denies that relatives of employees were invited to the facility to receive the Pfizer vaccine, spokeswoman Laura M. ![]() Hospitals are overwhelmed saving lives and don’t have time to stop and create a new vaccine distribution plan for a small amount of vaccine that is about to expire.” Situations are constantly in flux and people have to make command decisions to save as many lives as possible within their current capacity. “Faced with thawed, expiring vaccines that can’t be refrozen, and no contingency plan, doctors made the choice to vaccinate people they could,” she said. The woman praised Southern California Hospital for taking quick action to ensure the vaccines were not wasted. Soon, the hospital was overwhelmed by those clamoring for the extra Pfizer doses, forcing the facility to stop offering vaccines to relatives and instead focus largely on first-responders, the woman said. “They offered police officers, firefighters and first-responders to get vaccinated and also told employees they could invite four family members.” “The hospital had planned on vaccinating all of their employees, but a large number of their staff declined and they were sitting on a lot of thawed vaccines,” the woman said, explaining what staff at the hospital told her. She is scheduled to return to the hospital in January to receive a second dose of the vaccine. The woman provided the Southern California News Group with text messages from the hospital showing her appointment and subsequent inoculation. (Contributed Photo) Staff members decline vaccineĪ former national leader in emergency management, who asked not to be identified, said this week that, just before Christmas, a relative who works at Southern California Hospital invited members of her family to receive Pfizer vaccines at the facility. Medical workers say they were passed over for extra doses of the shot in favor of hospital employees. People line up inside Southern California Hospital for the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. Time is of the essence in distributing the Pfizer vaccine, which must be stored at a temperature of -94 degrees Fahrenheit and administered soon after thawing, or it goes to waste. ![]() “We do not offer it to family members of our staff.” “We have been really holding the line and making sure frontline workers go first,” said Krist Azizian, chief pharmacy officer for Keck Medicine of USC, which has about 9,000 workers. They insist, however, that first-responders were targeted for the extra doses at the 420-bed facility.Įlsewhere, officials at other medical facilities throughout the region have indicated they are strictly heeding Centers for Disease Control recommendations to only offer the vaccine and extra doses found in some vials to frontline workers. Officials at Southern California Hospital in Culver City, like Redlands Community Hospital previously, acknowledge they reached out to non-hospital workers when they found themselves with extra Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses that would have otherwise expired. Amid assurances from major Southern California medical centers that only frontline health workers are receiving early COVID-19 vaccines, a second community hospital has apparently strayed from federal guidelines and inoculated an employee’s relative.
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