Questions Raised About Allocation Process For Vaccine

The Health Minister, Wicklow T.D. Stephen Donnelly, is facing pressure to explain why staff at a private hospital, that refused to sign up to a deal to provide extra beds to the HSE, were given the Covid-19 vaccine ahead of other healthcare workers.

According to the Herald, the HSE issued a press release that a deal had been reached for the Beacon hospital to be used as a mass vaccination centre. But the HSE chief executive Paul Reid later expressed concern about the plan, because there was no agreement for the Beacon to provide extra beds for any surge in the spread of the Coronavirus.

Other private hospitals that have signed up to the agreement have been angered,  because their staff have yet to be given the vaccine. It also emerged in the Dail yesterday that the Mater hospital has vaccinated less than 50% of those who need it because it wasn’t given enough of the vaccine.