Hospital not among vaccine recipients

Jana Mathia, Whitman County Gazette | Dec 24, 20200

COLFAX — The first shipment of a COVID-19 vaccine is not expected to be given to workers at Whitman Hospital and Medical Clinics.

“It appears WHMC will not be a distribution site for the first round of vaccinations for front line healthcare workers and physicians,” Whitman Hospital spokeswoman Laurie Gronning said.

Interim county Public Health Director Chris Skidmore could not confirm whether the hospital was among those to receive any of the first 975 doses of the vaccine. The first shipment is excepted to arrive tomorrow, Friday.

According to Skidmore, local entities, including hospitals, had to receive official approval from the state to be enrolled in the program to administer the vaccine. The hospital may be awaiting that approval.

“There’s a huge bottleneck at the state to get this approval,” Skidmore said. He believes the state is in the processes of hiring more staff to process the enrollments.

When the enrollment process was announced, local providers were quick to begin the enrollment process, Skidmore said. He hoped to see those locals entities on the approval list Friday, which is when the state has been updating the enrollment list.

According to Gronning, the number of COVID in-patients has been less than 5% of the hospital’s capacity since the pandemic began.

As of Monday, more than 450 people had received their first vaccine dose, Public Health officials announced.