Ban vaccine appointments for privileged VIPs, demand access for all Washingtonians
Invitation-only access is fine for weddings, art auctions, black-tie fundraising galas and tours of the Bill and Melinda Gates mansion. But offering exclusive COVID-19 vaccine appointments to fat-cat donors and well-connected insiders, as some Puget Sound hospital organizations did, stands as an outrageous form of preferential treatment.
It certainly betrays the idealistic notion that “we’re all in this together.”
State lawmakers should take action in Olympia to help ensure this nonsense stops.
The outreach to VIPs was apparently concentrated in the North Sound area; it was arranged by Providence Regional Medical Center, Overlake Medical Center & Clinics and EvergreenHealth, according to watchdog reporting last week by The Seattle Times. At least two facilities acknowledged the bad optics after being admonished by the governor.
Representatives for South Sound-based MultiCare and Franciscan health systems told us this week they’ve done nothing like that, adding that they provide equal access to anyone eligible for the vaccine under the state’s first two phases.
That’s good to hear, though we’d trust a state law more than the honor system.
What could possess not one regional healthcare organization, not two, but three, to make such a tone-deaf decision when the vaccine remains in short supply? Ostensibly they wanted to test their vaccine-scheduling software and fill slots quickly using their databases of foundation members, donors, volunteers and others.
But their actions fly in the face of the Washington Department of Health’s plans to equitably inoculate our state’s 7.6 million residents. It’s not just a matter of basic fairness, easily grasped by every kindergartner taught not to cut the lunch line. It also should appeal to collective self-interest.
Unless people from every zip code, race, ethnicity, age and income group trust the system and can access the vaccine once they qualify, we won’t achieve the herd immunity necessary to attain some new version of normal.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan was right last week to ask the state to ban such acts of vaccine privilege. And legislators responded appropriately this week by drafting a short, simple bill to do just that.
Senate Bill 5418 would prohibit health care providers from giving special vaccine access to donors or board members by using reservation systems, invitation-only mechanisms or exclusive clinics.
During times of scarcity, providers are ordered to “make every effort to provide the drug or vaccine to eligible individuals in a fair and consistent manner.”
Violators would face a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per incident.
The bill is sponsored by 16 Democratic senators, including all four from Pierce County. That no Republican names appear on the bill defies good sense. This should be a bipartisan statement of social, medical and bioethical justice.
Washington’s favoritism controversy comes at a time when supply is tight, mass vaccination event registrations fill up in minutes and questions of equity already run rampant. While the federal government is releasing more vaccine and distribution on the ground is improving, Washington’s rollout rates near the middle of the pack in a state-by-state New York Times analysis.
Our state ranks 18th in percentage of people who’ve received the first shot (8.4 percent) and 14th in the percentage of doses used (68 percent), but falls to 31st place in percentage of people who’ve had the full two-dose regimen (1.9 percent).
Public health advocates are justifiably concerned about people of color, who face a daunting combination of higher COVID-19 infections and lower vaccine penetration. Durkan has called for community health clinics in low-income neighborhoods to be given higher priority. Steps like this must be taken to ensure the vaccine is distributed fairly along racial and socioeconomic lines.
Meantime, our most virus-vulnerable and technology-challenged seniors struggle with vaccine signups that are mostly done online.
“Getting access to vaccinations on which my life might depend should not be as hard as getting tickets to a Fleetwood Mac concert,” 70-year-old Tacoma resident Catherine Taylor said in an email to The News Tribune.
Special access for elite groups sends a discouraging message to ordinary folks like Taylor who keep running into brick walls.
The value of passing a state law may be largely symbolic. Department of Health officials already carry a big stick and have threatened to use it; last week they sent a letter to the providers that were identified as going out of bounds, warning that their vaccine allocations may be reduced or stopped.
Regardless, the Legislature would do well to adopt SB 5418.
Protecting Washingtonians from this virus is a steep hill to climb. In Pierce County, 64,298 residents had rolled up their sleeves for their first shot at last count (around 7 percent of the county population) while 15,933 had received their second dose (less than 2 percent of the population).
State leaders can’t let favoritism for a privileged few — or even the appearance of favoritism — corrupt the vaccine-delivery effort.