Posted on 02/11/2021 8:06:12 PM PST by tbw2
Ten doses of the Covid-19 vaccine would expire within hours, so a Houston doctor gave it to people with medical conditions, including his wife. What followed was “the lowest moment in my life,” Dr. Hasan Gokal said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The officials maintained that he had violated protocol and should have returned the remaining doses to the office or thrown them away, the doctor recalled. He also said that one of the officials startled him by questioning the lack of “equity” among those he had vaccinated.
“Are you suggesting that there were too many Indian names in that group?” Dr. Gokal said he asked.
Exactly, he said he was told.
Both the Texas Medical Association and the Harris County Medical Society recently issued a statement of support for physicians like Dr. Gokal who find themselves scrambling “to avoid wasting the vaccine in a punctured vial.”
“It is difficult to understand any justification for charging any well-intentioned physician in this situation with a criminal offense,” the statement said.
Insanity
I don’t know the situation but I wonder how he got ‘extra doses’.
They had a vaccination event. Someone comes in at the end, and they pop open a new vial to get vaccinated. Last person, event closes, and you have a full vial with 10 doses that has to be trashed in six hours.
Instead of throwing it out, he starts looking for qualifying patients like elderly with health problems. After he asked his superiors for any referrals to come to the vaccination site and a boss’ elderly parents who might want to be vaccinated.
He spends hours vaccinating 10 people like a mom whose kid is on a ventilator ... and gets punished for it.
This article makes the Dr. seem a hero and the DA scum.
But then it is the ‘New York Times’.
So I shall wait to hear the other side of the story from the DA.
I suppose an alternative would be to get the last person to come back... Nah.
Sounds like a Kamala Harris kind of DA.
Folks, dont get sick anymore. Take care of yourselves as much as you posibly can.
This is what passes for medicine and healthcare today.
None of it in your best interest. They fire anyone who makes a reasonable judgment call. And I am not for these vaccines, but using them before they expire, it could have been any other time-sensitive medicine and this is what you get.
Do not put your life into bid meds hands unless absolutely necessary. You’ll be damaged/dead and still have to pay a big bill for being damaged/dead.
It’s terrible that this doctor has at least for now, lost his practice over unwritten protocol.
Whatever happened to offering training to someone so that this ‘error’ would not happen again? No second chances, after all his years of education and experience?
Something else may be going on here. Some snippy bureaucrat feeling ignored is most likely the issue.
follow the money
I read the entire article...he did exactly the right thing.
This country has gone mad.
.
Wow.
If d = doses per vial
And v = number of vials removed from cold storage
And i = number of patients inoculated
Then a = number of available doses = d * v
Then i <= a
Then e = extra doses = a - i
equity
Reminds me of soviet era enforced/forced wastage.
It’s all about control.
This reminds of me of how some cities have inhumane prohibitions against restaurants and grocery stores giving away close-date food or individuals feeding the homeless. If it’s not from their own government (or from a government-approved source), they don’t want it being done. Control freaks.
That’s about on par with throwing away food when needy people are present.
Sounds like a completely reasonable judgment call to not let any vaccine go to waste and allow it to make more people be immune. Isn’t that the point?
I’m at a loss for words.
This is the kind of thing you expect in New York - either under Il Duce in Albany, or the other Il Duce in Gracie Mansion. To have it happen in Houston, TX, is a little man-bites-dog.
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