On Monday, a guy sits on a bench on Congress Street in Portland.
The Maine Medical Association needs to use network fitness clinics to administer COVID-19 vaccines to more than 1,000 doctors, nurses, and non-hospital networks in the state.
The proposal arises when physicians practicing independent practices complain that the state and hospital networks have left them out of their plans to get the vaccine.
On Tuesday, Maine reported 590 new cases of COVID-19 and seven more deaths.
Independent physicians say they see non-essential fitness personnel hired through networks of hospitals already vaccinated, but doctors who are affiliated with those networks, many of whom are most at risk because they treat patients with COVID, have still been informed of the date of their injection. .
Dr. Cortney Linville, a physician at Wiscasset, told the Press Herald Monday that doctors and those treating rural patients feel “neglected” and excluded from vaccination planning.
Most doctors paint for network paintings at a hospital, such as MaineHealth, the father of Maine Medical Center in Portland, or Northern Light Health, the father of Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. But there are still independent medical offices in Maine, as well as number one care groups, such as InterMed and Martin’s Point, which are independent of the hospital’s networked paintings.
Maine operates 20 federally qualified gyms, clinics that serve mainly low-income people in Maine, only in urban spaces such as Portland and Bangor, but also in many rural areas such as Eastport, Lubec and Bucksport.
These services can also be ideal places for immunization clinics, said Dan Morin, spokesperson for the Maine Medical Association, an organization that represents doctors before the Maine Legislature. Independent doctors and staff in remote spaces in Maine might have done so in a different way. long distances to be vaccinated.
“We can use FQHC (federally qualified gyms) to vaccinate independent doctors, as well as lifeguards, as volunteer firefighters and paramedics,” Morin said. “It’s an act of justice. “
Morin said that when doses of the vaccine began to be distributed to hospitals, no plan had been put in place to vaccinate independent doctors and nurses, even though they were also frontline fitness workers.
Darcy Shargo, executive director of the Maine Primary Care Association, which represents fitness clinics, said in an email reaction to questions that the discussions are in his infancy, but that such a plan might be possible.
“We’ve had initial discussions within our network and some of our gyms are willing to make the effort to implement vaccination in this way,” Shargo said. “Even if I warn you, there are logistical obstacles that we would like to overcome. And, of course, one of the big barriers is that the network’s fitness centers are also looking to vaccinate their staff. “
Morin said she discussed the progress of plans to vaccinate independent doctors at a convention convened Monday afternoon with Jeanne Lambrew, the state’s commissioner of social facilities and fitness facilities, and Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Senior state fitness officials appear to be in a position to help, Morin said, and expects the challenge to be resolved soon. Shah said at Monday’s press conference that he is aware of the challenge and that the state is looking for solutions, but he may simply not say so. Precisely when fitness personnel would be vaccinated. Many other people are online to get the vaccines, but the state is not getting the number of doses promised through the federal government, Shah said.
Maine won about 5,200 doses less than Operation Warp Speed of the Trump administration. On Tuesday, the state won 32,175 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 32,600 doses of the Modern vaccine, said Robert Long, spokesperson for the CDC in Maine.
Of these, 19,634 were administered, a buildup of about 2,500 since Monday, according to the CDC of Maine. Other vaccinated people account for approximately 1. 5% of the state’s population.
Long said the doses had been “sent to hospitals, retail pharmacies, independent pharmacies, home care and palliative care providers, and emergency service providers. “
The country is still in the early stages of COVID-19 vaccination, with the first vaccines approved through federal regulators in mid-December for emergency use. The United States is now stepping up the logistics of a national immunization program.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, another 22,909 people in Maine tested positive for COVID-19 and 333 died.
At a press conference on Monday, Shah said the shortage of expected vaccine deliveries was causing logistical problems. Frontline physical care workers, paramedics, and long-term care service citizens are the first to get the vaccine.
“Unfortunately, having a short circuit like this has system-like implications,” Shah said Monday, explaining that distribution plans want to be replaced on the fly in case of scarcity. Shah said federal officials said in a call to the convention that a discrepancy between when Pfizer produced the doses and when he is in a position to send them is causing shortages.
President Trump signed a relief bill this week opposed to COVID-19 that includes an $8 bill for the distribution of vaccines to states that administer the deployment of the immunization program.
Hannaford supermarkets announced Tuesday that they are preparing to offer COVID-19 vaccines at their pharmacies in Maine and 4 other New England states as soon as Phase 2 of the state’s multi-phase immunization program begins. Maine is recently in Phase 1A. Hannaford said he knew when Phase 2 would begin.
Hannaford said in a press release that he won federal approval in November to administer COVID-19 vaccines. Since then, the company has purchased more freezers and pharmacies prepared to get the vaccine. It also provided more education to pharmacy staff, purchased more public protective equipment, and evolved virtual appointment bureaucracy and team plans for waiting times.
Hannaford operates 156 pharmacies in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont.
Tuesday’s deaths occur with two cumberland County women, one in their 90s and one in their 80s; a man in about 60 years in Androscoggin County; a woguy in his 1980s oxford county; a woman about 60 years old in Penobscot County; a man in his 60s in Penobscot County; and a woguy in his ’80s York County.
Maine has another 184 people recently hospitalized for COVID-19, 48 of whom are in intensive care.
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