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ALMA - Harlan County Health Systems disciplined an employee for taking H1N1 vaccine to vaccinate family members.

Hospital Administrator Jeff Shelton said the employee was responsible for handling the limited supply of the vaccine.

He said the incident prompted the hospital to immediately create a new system of controls and implement a new level of ethical decision-making procedures to prevent further abuses.

“Did it happen? Yes it did,” Shelton said. “And I can tell you I was personally furious about it when I found out about it. I am not a micromanager, and I allow people to make decisions independently, but in this case an employee made a decision that was not ethical and not responsible.”

Shelton said, “This created very serious ethical questions for us, in addition to the fact that the doses of vaccine were inappropriately taken out of the building. As far as I am concerned, just because a person has access to a product, that doesn’t mean they should make a decision that favors family members over others in the community. I can assure you steps have been taken to prevent anything like this from happening here again in the future.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines on priority vaccination groups. Harlan County Health Systems has met all the high-priority vaccination needs in the community, Shelton said.

e-mail to:

betsy.friedrich@kearneyhub.com

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