Letters to the Editor: What does it take to get a COVID vaccine shot in Los Angeles?

To the editor: My 98-year-old mother was hospitalized at Providence St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica recently. The doctors want her to go, short term, to a skilled nursing facility instead of directly home. My mother, reasonably in my opinion, asked to receive a COVID-19 vaccination before being placed in such a facility for all of the obvious reasons. (“California’s vaccine rollout has been too slow, Newsom says, with only 35% of doses administered,” Jan. 4)

She was told flat out by several levels of hospital staff that “no patients are getting the vaccine at this time.” I called several of the nursing facilities in the Santa Monica area and all told me that they do not yet have the vaccines but hope to get them in the next few weeks.

I assume that it is some level of government that is causing this absurd situation, but surely all patients, and especially elderly patients, being transferred from hospitals into nursing facilities are the “low-hanging fruit” who could and should be most easily vaccinated.

Joshua C. Needle, Santa Monica

..

To the editor: I am a physician in Los Angeles County with three other medical providers and four medical assistants. We see and treat hundreds of patients a week in our practice. Many have procedures requiring us to remove their masks.

The method of distributing the new vaccines established by our county health department is an embarrassment to all of us who have been taking care of our fellow citizens every day since the pandemic started.

We never shut down; rather, we have treated all of our skin cancer patients while scrupulously providing a safe environment to do so, both for our patients and our staff.

Martin Kay, M.D., Burbank

..

To the editor: The way the California vaccine rollout is going, if I didn’t know better, I would think the Republicans were in charge.

Alan Carver, Oxnard