SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Teresa Parada is exactly the type of person California officials say they want to vaccinate: she is a retired worker who speaks little English and lives in a hard-hit part of Los Angeles County.
But Parada, 70, waited for weeks while others of his age flock to Dodger Stadium or receive coronavirus at major hospital chains. The place where she normally receives medical care, AltaMed, is now receiving enough supplies to vaccinate her later this month.
Parada said the TV reports show people lining up for vaccines, but “I see only vaccines going to the Angles”.
“It is rare for me to see a Latin there for the vaccine. When will it be our turn? ” she said.
Governor Gavin Newsom has repeatedly called the heritage his “northern star” for vaccinating a diverse state of nearly 40 million. He partnered with the federal government to establish mass vaccination sites in working-class neighborhoods in Oakland and Los Angeles. And it’s a big part of why he instructed Blue Shield to centralize California’s patchwork vaccine system, asking for help from the Kaiser Permanente hospital chain.
Even so, community health center workers considered the backbone of the safety net for the poor in the United States, with a focus on health equity, say they are not getting enough doses for their patients – the at-risk residents who state needs to vaccinate.
In California, nearly 1,400 of these centers offer free or low-cost services to around 7 million people, many in communities with a higher concentration of low-income families and few providers who take Medicaid, known in California as Medi-Cal. Many of their clients speak a language other than English, work long hours, do not have transportation and want to go to the health professionals they trust.
Dr. Efrain Talamantes, director of operations at AltaMed Health Services, said it was disheartening to see the starting doses go elsewhere while his patients continued to be positive for the virus.
“There is a clear disparity whenever there is a limited resource,” he said.
Most states are looking for ways to distribute the limited supply of vaccines, resulting in a confusion of methods in the absence of a federal plan. Tennessee is among the states that dispense doses based on county populations, while California distributes them to eligible groups, including teachers and rural workers. MMA enabled people with more resources to receive scarce vaccines.
Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, chairman of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, said it seems obvious that the best strategy for bringing vaccines to hard-hit communities is to go to places where residents already receive Care. But big managers tend to think of community health centers as less efficient because of their smaller size, she said.
“We are not very creative in the way we distribute vaccines efficiently. Our only creative solutions are to build mass vaccination sites and perhaps give people preferential access to those sites, ”she said.
As California has stepped up vaccination efforts through mobile and pop-up clinics in churches, workplaces and schools, state data show how relatively few vaccines went to Latinos and Blacks compared to their populations.
African Americans received 3% of the vaccine doses, while representing 6% of the state. Latinos, who represent 39% of the state, received 17% of the doses.
Blue Shield officials say they plan to keep health centers that are already administering vaccines open, but clinics fear they will not receive enough doses.
State vaccine spokesman Darrel Ng said the governor’s plan for equitable vaccination includes reserving vaccines for “communities disproportionately affected and ensuring that providers serving those communities are part of the network”. He said in a statement that included sending mobile clinics to places like black churches.
Andie Martinez Patterson, vice president of government affairs for the California Primary Care Association, said that while large-scale health systems can vaccinate people quickly, they are unlikely to reach target residents.
Community health centers worked hard to persuade their patients to get the injection, said Alexander Rossel, chief executive of Families Together of Orange County, adding that their center inoculated 95% of its patients aged 65 and over.
Health centers watched with dismay when the vaccine for health workers initially went to larger hospitals in December. Then they watched as the most affluent and experienced English speakers on the Internet, with time to browse web portals and drive long distances to appointments, filled the vaccination arenas.
When Orange County started opening large-scale vaccination posts in mid-January, community health centers also ordered doses, said Isabel Becerra, chief executive of the Coalition of Orange County Community Health Centers.
“We don’t have transportation. We do not speak English. We do not understand the technology you are asking us to use to register and queue. So, can we vaccinate the population aged 65 and over in the comfort of their own facilities? ” she said.
Jodie Wingo, interim president of the Riverside and San Bernardino counties community health association, said the associated clinics are expanding to inoculate more than its 500,000 patients. But now they are only receiving a few dozen doses at a time.
“Everyone is working for equity, but that doesn’t seem fair. No way, ”she said.
AltaMed, in Los Angeles and Orange counties, recently started receiving 3,000 doses a week from both counties. The supply should allow customers like Parada, who is Mexican, to receive the vaccine this month.
AltaMed will send a vehicle to take her to a clinic for the injection that will protect her when she goes out, with a double mask, to shop for her family.
“I’m the one who has to leave. I have to protect myself, ”she said.