A South Bay hospital’s decision to allow affluent educators to skip the line for a COVID-19 vaccine could have legal implications.
San José Spotlight learned that the county prosecutor is examining whether any laws were violated when the Good Samaritan allowed teachers and staff in the School District of the Union of Los Gatos to receive vaccines before the most vulnerable populations, pretending to be health professionals.
“We are aware of the charges and are investigating the matter,” said Sean Webby, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office.
As first reported by the San José Spotlight on January 22, Los Gatos Union school district superintendent Paul Johnson sent an email to teachers and staff saying that they can apply for a vaccine on Good Samaritan on request hospital’s director of operations. Johnson told the team that the hospital is offering vaccines because they “haven’t forgotten” the school district’s campaign last year to raise funds to buy meals for hospital staff.
And since Santa Clara County is vaccinating only health professionals and people over 75, Johnson instructed the team to “sign up under health buttons.”
Los Gatos teachers and staff who signed up for the health care option had to certify that they were health professionals, under penalty of perjury. This raises questions about whether Johnson, the hospital leadership or others may have committed a conspiracy to commit perjury by signing up for vaccines.
Webby declined to provide further details on Monday.
Johnson denied that vaccinations for teachers were part of a money exchange and apologized to teachers and staff in Los Gatos for the “failure to communicate” in a follow-up email obtained by San José Spotlight.
The county follows state guidelines for vaccine distribution, but has dealt with the shortage of supplies. Although state guidelines allow vaccinations for people aged 65 and over, most providers in Santa Clara County are vaccinating residents aged 75 and over due to the limited vaccines available.
Good Samaritan himself informed the municipality that he is only vaccinating health professionals due to scarcity.
Hours after this news organization’s report, Santa Clara County COVID-19 testing officer Dr. Marty Fenstersheib sent a letter to the Good Samaritan saying the county would withhold future doses of vaccine from the hospital until it agreed to follow the guidelines vaccine distribution and submit a plan for doing so.
“The County will provide the Good Samaritan with sufficient doses of vaccine to complete the vaccination of those to whom the Good Samaritan has administered the first dose of vaccine,” wrote Fenstersheib, “but the County will not provide the Good Samaritan with any additional doses of vaccine, the less and even The Good Samaritan offers sufficient guarantees that it will follow state and county instructions on vaccine eligibility and provides the county with a concrete plan with what the Good Samaritan will do ”.
Good Samaritan Hospital CEO Joe DeSchryver said the decision to administer the vaccines was “to avoid wasting supplies that were already defrosted”.
“We subsequently realized that we were wrong and sincerely apologize for any confusion this may have caused our community and our colleagues,” said DeSchryver. “We are committed to working with the county on a plan to ensure that we are clear and we are adhering to state and county guidelines on vaccine eligibility, which we did before this isolated incident.”
DeSchryver said the hospital is conducting an internal investigation “to make sure it doesn’t happen again”.
The Good Samaritan did not answer questions about whether he sent a plan to the county to receive more doses of the vaccine.
Contact Madelyn Reese at [email protected] and follow her @MadelynGReese on twitter.