|
medpundit |
||
 |
 |
|
Monday, January 06, 2003In Syracuse, health officials estimated that they would need $475,000 to vaccinate about 600 health workers at five hospitals in Onondaga County. That's almost $800 a person. Come, come. There's no reason administering a vaccine that has been supplied for free by the government would cost such an exorbitant amount. What the public health community is really saying is that they don't want to do this. Having proven themselves unequal to the task of assessing the need for the vaccine in the first place, they are now proving themselves unequal to the task of administering it. Perhaps the task should be delegated to others. There's really no reason that the vaccine would have to be given through public health departments. Hospitals have employee health services that provide such services as hepatits B immunizations. Why not train the community physicians and hospital staff to adminster the vaccine and let it be done on site? And as for administering it to the public, again, that doesn't have to be done by public health departments. Community physicians are just as capable of learning to administer a smallpox vaccine as public health nurses. These stories also do absolutely nothing to bolster confidence in the public health system's ability to respond to a smallpox attack. If they can't find the will to administer vaccine at a leisurely pace, how on earth would they administer it in the seven day window after a smallpox outbreak? posted by Sydney on 1/06/2003 08:08:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
|
