Vaccine Clinic Ends With Islanders Being Turned Away Despite Having Appointments

A COVID-19 and flu vaccine clinic hosted by the town at the Nantucket Elementary School on Saturday ended with numerous residents who had scheduled appointments being turned away.

The clinic was a state program that the town assists in administering, according to Jerico Mele, the town's director of human services. The program has been running for two years, but recently changed providers to an out-of-state organization that sends travel nurses to deliver vaccines, Mele told the Current.

The logistics of getting to and from the island, coupled with a short-staffed crew that was sent from the mainland to administer the vaccines, resulted in numerous people being turned away despite having booked appointments in advance. 

"Unlike previous years, the new vaccinating team brought a vehicle, which required the slow boat," Mele explained. "The boat unloaded slower than they anticipated, putting them in a hole at the beginning of the clinic and pushing back later vaccine appointments. Normally this is not a significant problem, as clinics are usually designed with a degree of flexibility in their vaccinator rates to allow for just these sorts of problems. Unfortunately, the state-dispatched team was also short handed: instead of the five vaccinators planned, there were only three. When Health Department staff who were qualified to assist in vaccination offered assistance, we learned that the insurance for the provider would not cover them for this clinic. As a result, there were only three vaccinators able to inject that vaccine supply at that clinic.

"This, coupled with the need for the team to leave on a scheduled boat in order to make it to clinics on subsequent days on the mainland, meant the clinic needed to turn away individuals who had signed up and received appointments," Mele added. "The Health and Human Services Department will be reaching out to the scheduling company to determine next steps in the following days, potentially expanding the October 19th clinic, and requesting an additional clinic day from the state to address any lost appointments. We will also make arrangements with the provider to allow us to address understaffing issues with local injectors should understaffing be an issue in further clinics. The Health and Human Services Department regrets turning anyone away from a vaccination and will work to ensure that this issue does not arise in the future."