A second California hospital was arrested for giving the Pfizer / BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to relatives of its employees – instead of using doses for the elderly or frontline workers.
Southern California Hospital allowed its employees to invite relatives to be vaccinated – just as another hospital in the area did last week, prompting criticism.
“The hospital planned to vaccinate all of its employees, but a large number of its employees refused and they were taking several thawed vaccines,” a vaccinated woman at Southern California Hospital told the Orange County Register. “‘They offered police, firefighters and first responders to be vaccinated and also told employees that they could invite four relatives.”
The Culver City hospital was inundated with requests from the general public and was forced to re-vaccinate only frontline staff.
Any decision by a hospital to treat staff relatives goes against the guidelines of the Center for Disease Control, which require that they be inoculated during the later stages of vaccine launch.
Southern California Hospital is the second facility stuck in Golden State giving “extra” doses of vaccine to family members.
Earlier this week, a Disney employee in California boasted on Facebook that she managed to get the vaccine because of a relative who was a “big deal” at Redlands Community Hospital.
“After doctors and staff who expressed an interest in the vaccine were administered, there were several doses left,” the hospital told the Register. “Since the reconstituted Pfizer vaccine must be used within a few hours or eliminated, several doses were administered to healthcare professionals outside the front line so that the valuable vaccine was not thrown away.