Office clerks and med students jumping vaccine queue, frontline doctor alleges

A frontline doctor based in the Western Cape claims that office administrators are getting vaccinated before workers in hospital ICUs.

The doctor wishes to remain anonymous and CapeTalk has referred to him only as Dr. D.

Dr. D alleges that the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine is not being administered according to the correct order of priority.

He claims that back-office health staffers are getting vaccinated before frontline doctors who are at a higher risk.

He says administrators and second-year med students should not be getting preference over patient-facing hospital workers.

People who are sitting in office jobs are getting the vaccine ahead of those who are working in ICUs, physically working with Covid-19 patients every day.

Dr D

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Dr. D believes that this is widespread and has heard similar stories from colleagues in other provinces.

On Monday, the Western Cape Health Department's chief of operations, Dr. Saadiq Kariem, said that a strict criteria was in place for the first batch of vaccines.

He told CapeTalk that senior hospital managers had identified healthcare workers who are first in line based on a risk and exposure criteria.

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The National Health Department reports that more than 23,000 healthcare workers had been vaccinated as of 6 pm, on Monday 22 February.

Almost 4,000 of those health staffers are in the Western Cape.

CapeTalk is following up with the Western Cape Health Department. John Maytham will ask the Head of Department, Dr. Keith Cloete, to comment on the allegations made by Dr. D.

It all started off looking really promising and looking really good until we started hearing of stories where vaccines were going to people who were working in administrative roles or people who had very little patient contact at the expense of... workers who are actually dealing with Covid-19 patients each and every day.

Dr D

I've been raising the issue with colleagues and friends and I've noticed that over the past few days we've seen a huge number of vaccines being doled out to people who perhaps shouldn't be getting them in this first [batch] of 80,000 vaccines.

Dr D

People like myself - who are actually working with Covid patients every day, swabbing them, intubating people in casualty - are left without the vaccine at this stage. It's now been a week.

Dr D

We haven't even had the opportunity to get it yet, meanwhile, you see people like second-year students who are studying medicine - but they have never touched a patient in their life, never mind a Covid-19 patient - and they are getting vaccinated against the virus.

Dr D

Listen to the discussion on Afternoon Drive with John Maytham:

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