After canceling some 21,400 appointments for first-dose coronavirus vaccines, Ochsner Health will begin rescheduling vaccinations weekly once it receives news from the state, hospital officials said on Monday.
“This is an evolution,” said Warner Thomas, CEO of Ochsner. “We think we had a certain amount of vaccine. We schedule a certain amount of consultations. It just so happens that we are not succeeding at that level. “
Louisiana and other U.S. states are in the midst of the big logistical challenge of vaccinating residents against the coronavirus.
Moving forward, Ochsner will begin rescheduling canceled appointments for the first dose between Fridays and Tuesdays, the period between notifying the shipment he will receive from the state and delivering the vaccines, Thomas said.
The 21,400 residents on Ochsner’s waiting list will be rescheduled in the order of the original appointments. All hospital employees who have not yet chosen to receive the vaccine will be added to the end of the queue. Currently, 49.1% of the hospital’s staff has already been vaccinated.
As vaccines among hospital staff have stabilized and eligibility has expanded to those aged 70 and over, the state has enrolled some 1,800 smaller providers to ensure a wide geographical reach. But that means that some hospitals, like Ochsner’s Lafayette General, will receive zero doses this week after receiving a 975 shipment last week.
On Ochsner’s main campus, which distributes vaccines in several locations in southeastern Louisiana, doses dropped from 3,900 last week to 1,950 this week.
The state said allocation choices are made based on equity and usage, but there is not enough supply from the federal government to meet demand.
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“The team does the best job it can to spread the vaccine fairly every week,” said Dr. Joe Kanter, acting assistant secretary at the Office of Public Health. “This means that there is no ‘expected’ distribution weekly.”
The state’s supply is expected to remain stable, but stable for the next four weeks, Kanter said.
LCMC Health, which operates six hospitals in the New Orleans area, has also started to delay appointments, citing a lack of supplies at the federal level.
“Based on our planned vaccine allocations to be received in the coming weeks, we are adjusting our schedules to meet our allocation supply,” said LCMC President Dr. John Heaton. The hospital system did not answer questions about how many appointments were adjusted.
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Ochsner and LCMC emphasized that the second doses would continue as scheduled.
Emily Woodruff covers public health for The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate as a member of Report For America.