Cancellations include appointments for the first and second doses – most of which are affecting members in the Bay Area. Sutter Health confirms that cancellations of the second dose will have priority for rescheduling.
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It’s the last thing Sean Sheik, 80, wanted to hear.
“We need to reschedule you,” said Sheik.
Sutter Health suddenly canceled his second scheduled vaccine appointment for Tuesday morning – giving him no opportunity to reschedule.
After attending the Sutter Health clinic in Santa Clara County, Sheik received a pamphlet and was informed that there were not enough vaccines.
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In addition to Santa Clara, viewers are reporting the same problems in San Francisco, San Mateo and Alameda counties. One written: “Checked on the spot, it says that all doses have been canceled until further notice.”
Sutter Health has confirmed that more than 90,000 first and second dose consultations can be canceled due to a delay in shipments due to bad weather or a lack of communication from the state.
“We are urgently requesting the additional allocations we need from the state to avoid canceling the more than 90,000 second-dose vaccination appointments currently in our books,” said Monique Smith of Sutter Health Communications. “This is an extremely unfortunate situation for our patients and can be avoided if we can get an additional supply of vaccine.”
Sutter added that they are urgently requesting more doses from the state and the Blue Shield, claiming that the state has misunderstood its “first and second dose inventory”.
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“Sutter Health data was not coming cleanly into the state, so the state believed for several weeks that Sutter had a large stock of doses, but that was not true,” said Blue Shield CEO Paul Markovich.
He denies that the company’s transition is contributing to this delay, but says the first batch of doses of Sutter will arrive early next week.
“We are going to put a lot more doses on Sutter in the coming weeks so that they can reschedule these appointments instead of canceling them,” said Markovich.
Blue Shield’s CEO added that Sutter’s situation is the reason why all suppliers must be linked to a performance management system to maintain an accurate inventory count.
Therefore, essential immunocompromised workers like Shiek are not waiting.
“We are all going to work with a lot of fear, it’s a big setback,” said Shiek.
ABC7 News contacted the California Department of Public Health for an explanation, but has yet to receive a response.
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