A website designed to allow health workers to sign up for an appointment to receive the COVID-19 vaccine through the Medical University of South Carolina has gone viral this week, allowing anyone in the public eye generally have access to the link to make an appointment, regardless of your eligibility.
MUSC spokeswoman Heather Woolwine said the registration website was originally sent to external community health providers, such as dentists, ophthalmologists and physiotherapists, to allow their employees to be vaccinated through the community. ‘hospital. Healthcare workers are considered part of phase 1A in vaccine launch, which gives them access to the vaccine before other high-risk groups.
Woolwine said MUSC relied on an honor system, trusting that these external health care providers will not forward the registration link to friends and family. But that inevitably happened. I didn’t know how many people in the community who are not eligible for phase 1A have already gotten a vaccine through the MUSC. It is still unclear whether these people who were not technically eligible but received the first shot will be given the second booster.
But to move forward, anyone who has an appointment will have to prove their health-related work, he said.
Some patients who had already made an appointment to receive the COVID-19 vaccine received an email from the MUSC on Thursday explaining that “they will need to present credentials to verify that they meet the requirements.” Those who cannot prove they are part of Phase 1A “will not be vaccinated and will be asked to return with the test as soon as possible.”
“The advantage of that is that it’s about people who want to get the vaccine. That’s good. We want people to get it,” Woolwine said. “The concern is supply and demand.
Catherine Templeton, former director of the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control under former governor Nikki Haley, said her parents, in their 70s, requested an appointment through the MUSC website for a vaccine against COVID -19 and were withdrawn on Wednesday. They were not eligible in phase 1A.
“I think we need to prioritize the groups, but the analogy of the plane is correct and limiting the administration of vaccination to hospitals is dangerous,” Templeton said. “His model is to deal with acute emergencies, not prevent a public health crisis. All our energy should be concentrated on installing refrigerators on every street corner and vaccinating anyone who passes by.”
Like MUSC, Roper St. Francis also vaccinates community Phase 1A workers who do not work directly in the health care system, such as health workers, hospital spokesman Andy Lyons said.
Roper St. Francis uses an external website to allow these health professionals to sign up for an appointment with the vaccine, but this website has not been widely shared and makes it clear that only people who meet the requirements to get a COVID vaccine -19 right now are health care workers or those working in a health setting, such as medical office staff.
Roper St. Francis also uses a number of checkpoints, Lyons said, to make sure those who receive the vaccine meet the requirements to get it. Some people have been removed from their appointments because they did not qualify, but he classified these cases as “not an unbridled problem.” He said the hospital system now weighs in on additional measures to ensure compliance with the rules of deployment.
Trident Health, for now, only vaccinates its employees.
Meanwhile, some self-employed health workers who are not affiliated with a hospital system but who meet the requirements to obtain a vaccine during phase 1A have been unable to obtain one.
Dr. Dede Waring, an endocrinologist in North Charleston, explains that since December she has been trying to work with the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control to vaccinate her partner doctors and staff.
“Independent doctors have let themselves be defended in this 1A vaccination release,” Waring said. “We have gone through the initial vaccine allocation while our hospital-affiliated colleagues are receiving their reinforcements. We have met all DHEC requirements to administer the vaccines to ourselves and our staff and we have been “approved” by their program. Unfortunately, we have no idea what that means or when we will receive our vaccine protection. That is unacceptable. “
This story is unfolding.
To arrive Lauren Sausser at 843-937-5598.