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Madhouse at Burlington flu-shot clinic
By adamg on Sat, 11/14/2009 - 12:06pm
Brian Christiansen reports 3,800 people showed up to try to get one of 2,000 flu shots (500 for H1N1, 1,500 for regular flu):
... Took my 14 month old son to the clinic held at Burlington, MA’s high school today. I got there a half hour before it opened, after sitting in a half hour of traffic on Rt 3A to get there. Police blocked the driveway, sending people to park at Simmons Park, about a half mile up the street.
I parked there and took my son in his stroller back through the pouring rain. When I got about half way up the school driveway, the woman whom I parked next to was coming back towards me with her infant. She said there wasn’t enough vaccine of either seasonal or H1N1 for the number of people in line. She said 3800 people were already there, pushing and shoving. ...
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Comments
Remember how we were
Remember how we were promised there would be plenty of both types of flu vaccine this year for months on end by the government?
Aren't we all glad that the government isn't actively trying to take over the entire healthcare system. Oh wait....
But I'm sure they'll do a better job then they've done with education, defense, welfare, Amtrak, the Postal Service, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, TARP, ARRA, Cash For Clunkers, et al. TRUST THEM, after all this is, "The Most Ethical Congress Ever" according to the current House Speaker.
I was there, thought people were pretty well-behaved
I attended the clinic. After reading about other clinics, and knowing this is one of the only clinics for at least the next two weeks without a residency requirement (and how is limiting H1N1 vaccinations to residents of a municipality legal in the first place?), I showed up at 7:50am to save a place for my 3yo who my wife would be bringing later. I was roughly 50th in line. We were outside in the pouring rain and the initial word was that we'd have to stay out there until 11am. Around 9:15am or so, someone in charge finally realized they were in a high school and so had lots of hallways and brought us inside to wait.
I have no idea how many doses they had, but I do know that someone who arrived at 10am was still able to get H1N1 shots for her kids, receiving the shots around 2pm.
People in the line seemed pretty well-behaved to me. No pushing or shoving and people were good about not trying to steal a place if you had to go to the bathroom or something like that.
(I'm the guy who wrote the
(I'm the guy who wrote the linked post)
For the first commenter… I don't blame the government for shortages of vaccines. Private companies create it, and from every independent report, all of the companies who make this vaccine around the world are flat out producing it as fast as possible, while maintaining health standards.
It should be noted that one of the best things the Bush administration did was put a strong emergency vaccine program into effect. I'm all for credit where due. This paid benefits when making the H1N1 vaccine, and all possible bureaucratic obstacles were cleared. There are reports that the yield of the vaccine was not as high as initially forecasted, but 60minutes reported that the company producing the American supply has production maxed out now.
With the second commenter, I'm glad you've chimed in with your first hand experience. Perhaps the back of the line was more unruly because they had arrived before the clinic had even begun only to be told there wasn't enough for the people in line ahead of them, let alone they, who were standing in the rain, forced to park no where near the clinic? I can see that easily turning surly.
I think there is a good reasoning for residency/town worker-only clinics. Burlington must have paid a lot of money to conduct the clinic. Just the traffic control must have been costly. They would want to invest this money to keep their town functioning during the outbreak. Why would their taxpayers want to pay for out-of-towners to get shots? Why don't their communities hold clinics?
Full disclosure, I am not a Burlington resident, but my spouse is a town employee, and we were getting a shot for our child who is in the school system. That would pay the town benefits to reduce the number of sick kids stressing the school system, and reduce parent (town employee) sick days. (I was not planning on getting a shot unless there was a huge supply of them and it wasn't a big deal—which I did not expect to be the case).
The Town of Burlington
has run a municipal walk in clinic open to residents and Town employees for years. When I was growing up there, my mother used to take some of my siblings and me in for most of our vaccinations and an occasional physical (it was easier going to Town Hall, and later the Human Services Building, than across town to the Lahey Clinic). The Public Health nurse told me once that they regularly turned away residents of a certain wealthy neighboring town that didn't offer such a service to its residents.
I am guessing that no other
I am guessing that no other towns helped foot the bill for all of the police and personal that were needed to pay for the madness that occured on Saturday morning. In the future, I believe that this should be restricted to Burlington residents only or at the very least Burlington residents should have first priority.
Note the next two comments below
1. other communities haven't gotten vaccine, so they really can't hold a clinic. You can't provide what the state hasn't provided to you through it's byzantine distribution system.
2. Burlington was apparently working with two other communities, who likely pitched in for the support.
3. They probably had to open it up to all comers because they were given an unusually large allotment of a scarce commodity not available in neighboring places (again, Medford has nearly 60,000 people and hasn't seen any vaccine). Otherwise, they shouldn't have gotten any more than other communities have received.
Why dont other communities hold clinics?
BECAUSE THEY HAVEN'T BEEN GIVEN ANY VACCINE!
I am on the list to volunteer in Medford. I guess my city is not as highly ranked on the list of organizations to give vaccine to. I checked last week and they still do not even know if the city will get ANY VACCINE AT ALL.
Nobody knows for sure, because nobody seems to be able to figure out the supposed "system of priorties" which gets some people and groups the vaccines, and others nothing at all. Transparency in government? HAHAHAHA! I have classmates in the DPH who can't figure out how the hell their own agency is making the distribution decisions or why!
I'm sure the commonwealth has its reasons for giving Burlington such a nice heap of vials when other cities and towns who would LIKE to hold clinics CANNOT get the vaccine or are only getting enough to run school-hours clinics!
Makes me wonder who greased what for whom - seems that is the only way priorities get set in this state. Meanwhile, most of my family members out west and all of them in Canada have had theirs for nearly a month!
Not just Burlington
The clinic was held in Burlington, but it was a project of the Burlington, Lexington, and Woburn boards of health, so I assume the vaccine came from all three municipalities.
People started lining up at 4:30 a.m.
According to Channel 4, which also quotes Brian's Tumblr post.
I did not think it was a madhouse
If you did not arrive early, you did not get the H1N1 vaccine. Simple as that. We arrived about 9:30 for the 11:00 clinic opening, and we got H1N1 for our two five year olds.
It seemed to me that arriving early for a place in line was the only way we'd get H1N1 vaccine, given the current delays on shipping vaccines to everyone. Common sense indicated we needed to do that. There were many people who arrived during the clinic's posted hours, to find to their disappointment that they'd missed the boat.
We're glad and lucky that it worked out for us, sorry that the shortage exists.
The clinic was well organized, and people in line were polite and gracious, considering we'd all been waiting about three hours to get the shots. As a person ahead of me in line said, "we figured we'd come early--we'll end up waiting in line a long time, whether we come early or late!" So true.
Thanks to the Burlington Public Health Department, the Burlington Police Department, and all the volunteers for the time and effort they put into this major clinic. Especial thanks to the Police Department, who were outside in the pouring rain for HOURS helping people get to the clinic. You were tremendous. Three cheers.
Clinic...
I can certainly see people getting frustrated with the long lines and huge wait times, but people had to have known that this clinic was not like others that have been held in the past. With the media crush and all the stories they push about the high number of deaths due to this recent flu strain of course the clinic (which was funded by the Fed hence the lack of residency restriction) was going to be packed. I arrived to hold a place for my son at 8am and fully expected to stand in the rain until 11, thankfully that did not take place. The parking lot and school driveway seemed to fill up around 9 and the clinic did not start for 2 more hours so obviously no one was leaving hence the reason for the police shutting down the whole driveway. This, of course, led my wife to have to walk with our son, but what else could they have done? I did think it was rather humorous that people expected to roll in at 11 and walk right up, then seemed to voice or yell frustration that they were not allowed to do whatever they wanted to do. Bottom line, we are in a flu frenzy (warranted or otherwise) so plan ahead next time, rain or shine. Considering what they had to deal with I thought it was as well done as could be expected.
What was the Fed-funded part?
Interesting! What aspect of the clinic was federally-funded and/or how was it different from non-federally-funded clinics?