Some Big Apple healthcare professionals are furious that lower-risk hospital employees are cutting the line to get the COVID-19 vaccine – which has led to a violent battle for life-saving vaccines, according to a report on Friday .
Doctors and nurses at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital and other medical centers are turning on each other after bosses have failed to prioritize and regulate who receives the first punches, sources told the New York Times.
“Clearly, we are ready to destroy ourselves for this,” a doctor at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital told the newspaper.
Under hospital rules, the most exposed employees – such as nurses and doctors in emergency rooms – should be vaccinated first, followed by employees from other departments.
But officials far from the front lines – including social workers and employees who work from home – reportedly entered vaccination rooms ahead of schedule, according to the report.
The omission of queues generated a “anything goes” at the hospital during the first 48 hours after the vaccine arrived, a second doctor told the newspaper.
“I think the sad thing is that people are starting to turn on each other,” said the doctor. “Can you honestly say that this clerk deserves it before me? No, but nobody deserves it before anyone else. “
Healthcare professionals are the first to receive preventive injections from the New York state distribution plan. But the state left it up to individual wards to figure out how to distribute the coveted injections internally – and the plans appear to have failed in some hospitals, according to the newspaper.
A week after vaccines arrived, some nurses at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital had not yet been vaccinated, while other workers received the vaccines.
In an example of tension between staff, a hospital nurse confronted a social worker for allegedly skipping the line, according to the Times.
“She said, ‘We have to go to the ER sometimes’ – but that’s not true,” said the nurse about the social worker’s response.
Failure to clearly prioritize workers at risk has infuriated some employees – leading to an apology from the hospital, according to the newspaper.
“I am so disappointed and sad that this has happened,” wrote a senior executive at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Craig Albanese, in an email to the team obtained by The New York Times.
In a statement to the Times, the hospital later said: “We are following all New York State Department of Health guidelines on vaccine priority, with our initial focus on ICU and emergency room staff and equitable access for all”.
Meanwhile, at Mount Sinai Hospital, a doctor said workers could get a vaccine with the help of a conversation, simply by standing in line and claiming to do “Covid-related procedures,” according to the newspaper.
“We feel disrespected and underestimated due to our second-level priority for vaccination,” a group of anesthesiologists at the hospital angered administrators over the weekend, the newspaper reported.
In a statement, hospital officials said they were aware of only a few “improprieties” related to the vaccine.
Meanwhile, officials at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center were also frustrated by the long wait for the vaccine.
“There is competitiveness, skepticism and distrust,” occupational therapist Ivy Vega told the newspaper. “It is turning into a rivalry.”