Hamilton health-care workers got 8,645 COVID vaccine doses. But there’s no breakdown of who got the shot
No breakdown is available of the group that has received the most COVID-19 vaccines in Hamilton - health-care workers outside of seniors' homes.
Long-term care and high-risk retirement homes are supposed to be the first priority for vaccination and 5,250 doses have gone to their staff as of Feb. 2. In addition, 4,452 doses have gone to residents and 895 have gone to essential caregivers.
But the largest group is the 8,645 doses that went to other kinds of health-care workers with no details provided of where they work or what jobs they do.
The current categories in the system don't allow for this to be broken down," Hamilton public health said in a statement.
It's significant because national shortages of vaccine have raised questions about who has been first in line.
We've heard some pretty disturbing stories about people who are queue-jumping," said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.
In addition, the threat of fast-spreading COVID variants increase the urgency to get the most vulnerable protected, advised provincial projections released Feb 11.
The decision to prioritize long-term-care homes for the vaccination ... has worked," said Adalsteinn (Steini) Brown, dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. If we continue to prioritize vaccinations toward those who are most affected by the pandemic - retirement homes, shelters, older Ontarians or in our hardest hit neighbourhoods and communities - we will continue to save lives."
Some health-care workers are among the top priority group.
We want to make sure those who do the front-line care are also covered," said Ontario's chief medical officer of health Dr. David Williams.
But with no breakdowns of the vaccinated, it's hard to know what parts of the health-care system are protected and where there are gaps.
Getting timely information is also an issue. As of Feb. 10, Hamilton had administered 21,195 doses of vaccine, but details about how many went to seniors' homes were only available for the 19,242 doses given out by Feb. 2.
In addition, doses don't indicate how many people have been vaccinated because some are second doses.
St. Joseph's Healthcare and Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) both say they don't have breakdowns of who they've vaccinated either.
Documents obtained by The Spectator show the hospital networks included a large group of staff in priority one, which is those at highest risk of exposure to COVID-19.
It included all emergency departments, COVID units, intensive care units, general internal medicine units, assessment centres, code blue teams, those doing high-risk aerosol-generating procedures and those redeployed into long-term care.
A wide variety of staff from these units were included such as nurses, doctors, residents, security, porters, pharmacists, diagnostic imaging technicians, allied health professionals such as physical therapists and respiratory therapists, personal support workers, care co-ordinators, support staff such as business clerks and nutrition services, clinical leaders, managers and educators.
The documents say the vast majority of the first priority group got their first dose before shortages caused the vaccine to be strictly limited to seniors' homes on Jan. 19. The fixed-site clinic closed altogether Jan. 27.
This is very disappointing and we recognize it is contrary to our expected planning and the communications provided," states information provided by HHS to staff Feb. 5.
A big omission from the first group was staff at the temporary hospital at 150 King St. E. in Effort Square which cares for those ready to be discharged - primarily vulnerable seniors waiting for long-term care. Nearly two-thirds of the patients at the Satellite Health Facility and dozens of staff have been infected in four outbreaks.
These staff were eventually moved to the first group at the request of public health but the hospitals don't know how many of them have been vaccinated.
The hospital workforce of around 22,000 determined for themselves which of the four priority groups they fit into.
HHS and St. Joseph's have said the majority put themselves in the right group but no numbers have been given for how many were wrongly vaccinated first.
There has also been no count of how many were in each group.
Of those left to vaccinate, the hospital documents suggest half are in the third priority group while the other half are split between the second and fourth group. The second group are those who care for patients at highest risk of becoming severely ill if they were infected with COVID while the third group cares for those at lower risk. The fourth are nonclinical staff, students, researchers, volunteers and essential vendors.
The fixed-site clinic reopened as of Feb. 10 to give out second doses which were pushed back to 35 to 42 days from the recommended 21 days for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Joanna Frketich is a Hamilton-based reporter covering health for The Spectator. Reach her via email: jfrketich@thespec.com