Two pharmacists at Decatur Memorial Hospital were fired after one of them took COVID-19 vaccines home to family members and inappropriately mixed doses in December, according to newly disclosed emails from the Illinois Department of Public Health.
A pharmacist “took doses home at the end of the day and administered to her family,” according to an email sent to federal officials Jan. 20 from Heidi Clark, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the state health department. The pharmacist also “pooled doses in the Pfizer vials to draw more vaccine beyond six doses,” at Decatur Memorial Hospital, according to the email.
In a written statement, Illinois Department of Public Health officials said doses of the vaccine were diverted by a DMH pharmacist to people who were not eligible at the time to get the vaccine.
Cathy Strukely, Memorial Health System Communications, said they became aware of these incidents in January. “After an internal investigation, MHS contacted federal, state and local agencies to self-report this issue. We determined there was no issue of safety or loss of efficacy with the vaccinations,” said Strukely.
Angie Muhs, a spokeswoman for Memorial Health System, the parent company of DMH, confirmed in an email that one of the pharmacists diverted two doses. That pharmacist’s family members were not eligible for vaccines at that time, she said.
A Freedom of Information Act request filed with the state health department showed email complaints about vaccine providers not following federal or state guidelines for distribution. These emails follow national headlines about a Texas doctor distributing vaccine doses that were about to expire to acquaintances and his wife. He was fired and charged with stealing doses.
Memorial Health System became aware of the Decatur incidents in January, conducted an internal investigation and reported the issue to state, federal and local agencies, Muhs said.
“We determined there was no issue of safety or loss of efficacy with the vaccinations” that were pooled, she said in the statement. “Consistent with our core values of safety and integrity, the organization informed those potentially affected of the issue, and the two individuals involved in these incidents are no longer employed by Memorial Health System.”
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, pharmacists should not collect excess Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from multiple vials. If the amount of vaccine left over in a vial is not enough to give a full dose, it is to be discarded.
The small amount of vaccine remaining does not contain preservatives, which means pooling doses can lead to contamination, according to the state health department.
Memorial Health System notified the Illinois Department of Public Health about the incident, and the state health department contacted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about how the hospital should respond.
The CDC recommended that the hospital notify people who may have received the pooled doses and educate them about signs and symptoms of injection site infections, though infection was of minimal concern because a month had passed since the incident.
The CDC said those that may have received pooled doses would not need to get their first doses again, as long as they received the correct size dose the first time, according to an email from the Illinois Department of Public Health’s general counsel to the hospital system’s general counsel. Those people could still receive their second doses on time, the CDC said, according to the emails.
The hospital system reported the incidents to the local health department, the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which regulates pharmacists’ licenses.
The hospital system did not issue a news release or statement about the incidents at the time, with Evans saying in a January email to the state health department that “the public was not impacted so it is our opinion this is not needed.”
Generally, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation can take action against a pharmacist’s license including probation, suspension or revocation, said Garth Reynolds, executive director of the Illinois Pharmacists Association.
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