JANESVILLE, Wis. – Mercyhealth in Janesville says it was forced to cancel 650 first round vaccination appointments after the state returned 0 of 2,000 requested weekly doses.
During a state DHS call Thursday, Deputy DHS Secretary Julie Willems Van Dijk said while she can’t speak to Mercyhealth’s situation specifically, the state has run into issues with healthcare providers promising vaccine appointments with doses they haven’t been guaranteed.
“Each week, vaccinators submit a request for how many vaccines they want,” Willems Van Dijk said. “We run our allocation formula against those requests, and decisions are made about who will receive how much vaccine.”
Mercyhealth did not respond to repeated attempts to explain its situation Thursday.
“If Mercyhealth was actually told by us they’re receiving 2,000 vaccines and didn’t get them, I hope they’ve contacted our staff,” Willems Van Dijk said. “But if it’s a situation where they’ve just assumed they would get whatever they got last week, we have to caution our vaccine providers to not make those assumptions.”
County health officials say they were unaware Mercyhealth received none of its requested doses, despite the healthcare facility providing more than half of the vaccines to date countywide.
“I know it’s been challenging for a number of health systems who have made assumptions about how many vaccines they’re going to receive and made appointments that they have to cancel,” Willems Van Dijk said. “But this is part of the function of living in a world of scarce resources.”
COPYRIGHT 2021 BY CHANNEL 3000. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.
