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Sutter Patients Wait, Scramble for Second Doses After Thousands of Appointments Canceled

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Sutter Health's Alta Bates Campus. (Lisa Aliferis/KQED)

Sutter Health is canceling second-dose vaccine appointments through March 9 due to a lack of supply.

About 40,000 patients with second-dose appointments between March 3 and March 9 are in the process of being rescheduled in order of the dates they were originally slated to come in. Another 50,000 appointments starting March 10 are in danger of being canceled as well.

“This is an extremely unfortunate situation for our patients, and one that is avoidable if we can get additional vaccine supply,” said Angeline Sheets, director of media relations for the company, which has requested additional allocations from the state.

Sutter plans on calling all affected patients within 7-10 days to reschedule their appointments. Patients can also get a second vaccination from alternative providers. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, second doses can be delayed for up to six weeks; beyond that, only limited data on efficacy is available.

“It’s these kinds of barriers that have not just an impact on efficiency, but also on equity,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California. “The people who are least able to deal with these cancellations and rescheduling and issues are the people that may be the most vulnerable to the disease because of their situation.”

Leslie Silberman’s mother, Linda, is 82 years old and considered high risk due to her compromised medical situation. She received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine from Sutter Health’s Van Ness campus on Jan. 26. Her second dose was scheduled for Feb. 23 but was postponed because of storms around the country that affected vaccine shipments. Silberman helped her mother reschedule the appointment for March 5.

But on March 1, Sutter Health notified Linda it was postponing her final dose a second time due to insufficient supply.

“Obviously, something went wrong, and they’re trying to rectify the situation,” Leslie Silberman said. “California has some supply issues, but I don’t think that it was fair for the patients to be sort of at their mercy, and then all of a sudden be dropped like that.”

Silberman turned to Stanford Health Care and scheduled her mother’s vaccine appointment for March 5, the same day she would have received her second dose at Sutter.

When asked whether any steps were being taken to get Sutter more doses, the California Department of Public Health would only say that: “Every county, every state, every country wishes they had more vaccines ..., but California continues to work closely with the Biden administration to increase supply for providers statewide.”

Emily Hung

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