Beacon Hospital 'failed to consider alternatives' before vaccinating teachers
The Beacon Hospital in Dublin provided vaccines to teachers at a private school without considering alternative people or groups higher on the vaccination schedule, a HSE report into the matter has concluded. File picture: Sasko Lazarov / RollingNews.ie
The Beacon Hospital in Dublin provided vaccines to teachers at a private school without considering alternative people or groups higher on the vaccination schedule, a HSE report into the matter has concluded.
On March 23, the hospital vaccinated 20 teachers at St Gerard’s School in Bray after 20 leftover AstraZeneca vaccines were at risk of going to waste.
The incident sparked public outrage, with Health Minister Stephen Donnelly later suspending vaccine operations at the facility as a result.
A report by the HSE, conducted by Cornelia Stuart and published on Friday, identified “two main weaknesses” in the vaccination model employed in the hospital.
“The first of these was that the model relied on a predictable flow of persons to be vaccinated,” the review states.
“The second was that vaccine doses were drawn into syringes in advance of persons attending for vaccination, based on attendance predications and contrary to the HSE’s clinical guidance for Covid-19 vaccination, the Beacon Hospital’s own Covid-19 vaccine receipt, supply and reconstitution policy.”
The review states that when faced with the situation of having excess vaccines, the hospital sought to “utilise this” by identifying all available unvaccinated staff.
“Despite having exhausted all unvaccinated staff available and citing vaccine stability issues, they moved to avoid vaccine waste by mobilising a group of people that they considered offered a viable solution,” the report says.
There was no evidence the school solicited these vaccines, the report said, adding they accepted the offer in “good faith”.
The reviewer said she was told by the Beacon Hospital that the choice of the school was considered feasible because, for legitimate family reasons, the chief executive Michael Cullen had the mobile phone number of the headmistress of the school.
“Beacon Hospital asserted that this was a preferable option on the basis that they could access a group of potential recipients via one phone call rather than having to identify and contact potential recipients on an individual basis,” the review states.
However, the reviewer asserts there were other options available to the hospital before the teachers to account for the sequencing guidelines, specifically healthcare workers in the nearby HSE community healthcare organisation (CHO) 6.
The HSE's CHO 6 confirmed to the reviewer that if contacted at that time on March 23, it could have sent staff to the hospital within the timeframe suggested.
However, the hospital said it was its view the HSE office would not have been able to respond to a request for staff at such short notice.
“In the opinion of the reviewer, this is not a correct assertion,” the report states.
In the absence of the CHO 6 being considered, other alternatives included those living or working in crowded conditions or key workers in the food supply system, public and commercial transport and other vital services.
The report states there are a “number” of retail outlets within the hospital complex, and there is a large Garda station less than 3km away “which may also have represented a viable option at that time of day”.
“The reviewer is therefore of the opinion that, had the Beacon Hospital considered the allocation of these vaccines to groups higher on the sequencing list, that this would have been feasible,” the review states.
