Vaccine clinics don’t see many leftover doses
Most remaining by day’s end are given to volunteers, kupuna, other patients
With plenty of demand and a long pipeline of people to contact if slots open up, health care providers administering vaccines say they haven’t ended up with too many extra doses at the end of each day.
“We don’t typically have this issue, as we target about 800 appointments a day, and lately we have been surpassing that goal,” Maui Health spokeswoman Tracy Dallarda said.
If Maui Health has extra doses, its help desk, which assists kupuna with registration and appointment settings, normally contacts kupuna to see if they would like to come in sooner for their vaccine.
Maui Health, which operates Maui Memorial Medical Center, was forced to discard 1,386 Pfizer doses on March 22, after a malfunctioning refrigerator compromised the vaccines. The hospital said last week that it still had enough supply to keep all appointments already on the books.
State Department of Health spokesman Brooks Baehr said that “vaccination providers are required to report to us all doses wasted/discarded.”
According to Baehr, a total of 2,400 doses have been wasted or discarded in the state from mid-December through March 23, including the 1,386 that were lost at Maui Memorial.
Out of the remaining 1,014 that are classified as wasted and/or discarded, 881 had a broken vial or syringe, 64 were discarded because the vial was opened but not all doses were administered, 18 were discarded after vaccine was drawn into the syringe but not administered and 51 were lost or unaccounted for.
Baehr said that hospitals and clinics have found ways to use any “extra” doses that best fit their particular circumstance and that they are advised to use every vaccine.
Maui has received 79,100 doses to date, including 3,000 single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccines, Baehr said. This week Maui can anticipate delivery of another 13,480 doses of vaccines, he added.
At Maui Medical Group, which has been administering vaccines since Jan. 26, Administrator Cliff Alakai said he is not aware of any shots “wasted.”
“In the rare case we have extra shots, we walk our floors and find patients that want the shot,” he said. “We try to schedule patients in blocks of 10 as the vaccine vial has 10 shots each.”
For now Alakai said they are providing shots only to Maui Medical Group patients, though the DOH has requested that vaccines be open to any patient.
“We are looking into opening up a separate location for all patients, but we are not ready yet. A separate location requires a lot of staff and supervision,” Alakai said. “The benefit of giving shots to our own patients is that we have their medical records on file so we can review their medical conditions and document the shot.”
Alakai said they have “very few” Johnson & Johnson vaccines on hand and mostly administer the Moderna vaccine.
Shot clinics take place four days a week at Maui Medical Group’s Wailuku clinic and one day at its Lahaina clinic.
As of Monday morning, Maui Medical had administered 1,356 shots, Alakai said.
If there are extra vaccines at the end of the day at the DOH vaccination site at the University of Hawaii-Maui College, they are given to volunteers, according to Baehr.
Last week, an extra 100 or so appointments opened up to qualified individuals, though not as a result of leftover doses. Maui District Health officials explained that the clinic had been set up for people ages 75 and older under Phase 1b. However, with a quick turnaround time for the special clinic and not as many reservations as expected, appointments were opened up for a short time Thursday morning, with Maui police putting out a call on Facebook for eligible residents.
Health officials said that will probably not occur again and that folks were fortunate if they could get in during the opening.
However, as the initial push to get top priority groups vaccinated winds down, the college site is expanding its reach to more residents after the state expanded vaccine eligibility to people ages 60 and older on Monday.
The site, which is run by the Maui District Health Office with the help of the college, the Hawaii National Guard, Maui police and other agencies, has slots open this week and next by appointment only by calling 984-3780.
Meanwhile, beginning today, Maui Health is moving its South Maui vaccination site from the Kaiser Permanente Kihei Clinic to the Grand Wailea’s Haleakala Ballroom, Dallarda said.
“This move is allowing us to eventually expand our South (Maui) vaccination efforts as this site provides ample parking and space,” she said.
Vaccination times and dates for South Maui appointments will still be from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m on Wednesdays and Fridays.
For more information, visit mauihealth.org/covidvaccine.
Dallarda added that Thursday will be Maui Health’s 100th day of vaccinating. The hospital will surpass 30,000 administered vaccinations and plans to provide recipients with a special token on Thursday.
* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.