The Board of Directors for Chicago's Loretto Hospital said it has "taken appropriate actions of reprimand" against the West Side facility's president and COO amid controversy over the hospital's improper vaccination of several groups in the city, including Trump Tower employees.
"We are disappointed by the revelations of the past week. While it is the estimation of the Board that all reported events stemmed from a sincere desire to vaccinate as many eligible Chicagoans as possible – especially people of color – as quickly as possible, we acknowledge that actions were taken that fall outside the scope of The Loretto Hospital’s core mission," the board said in a statement Friday. "We have taken appropriate actions of reprimand against Loretto’s President/CEO George Miller and COO Anosh Ahmed, MD, for their roles in mistakes of judgment made."
The statement did not specify what actions, specifically, were taken.
The statement comes one day after the Chicago Department of Public Health announced it would withhold first doses of the coronavirus vaccine from Loretto Hospital after officials admitted that members of its staff improperly vaccinated employees of Chicago's Trump Tower, as well as more than a dozen Cook County Circuit Court judges.
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter here.
It was later revealed that the hospital also vaccinated members of its CEO's suburban church.
The CDPH confirmed that it will not send shipments of first doses to the hospital, but said that it will allow residents who received their first dose of the vaccine at the hospital to receive their second doses in the coming days.
"The hospital will not receive first doses until we can confirm their vaccination strategies and reporting practices meet all CPDH requirements," the department said in a statement.
Local
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot also released a statement, saying that the city "will not tolerate providers who blatantly disregard" CDPH guidelines.
"This life saving vaccine is a precious, but limited resource and one that must be preserved to do the most good," the statement read. "Unfortunately, in recent days, stories have surfaced alleging providers who had an obligation to follow CDPH guidelines, ignored those restrictions and instead allowed well-connected individuals to jump the line to receive the vaccine instead of using it to service people who were more in need."
SEIU Healthcare Illinois President Greg Kelley condemned the city’s decision to withhold vaccine doses, saying that it unfairly punishes individuals who had nothing to do with the decision on which individuals would get shots.
“We call upon the Board of Directors to hold the individuals responsible for breaking vaccine protocols accountable,” he said in a statement. “The dedicated frontline staff of Loretto and the Austin residents dependent upon Loretto in order to receive life-saving COVID-19 vaccinations don’t deserve to suffer as a result of the actions of two people.”
The city says that first dose allocations to the hospital will be paused for the next week, while second dose appointments will be allowed to move forward. It is unclear when the pause on new appointments will be lifted.
Vaccination sites that violate city rules on distribution of the vaccine are subject to removal from the city’s program, according to officials.
After the reports of Trump Tower employees improperly receiving vaccines became public, WBEZ also reported that 13 Cook County Circuit Court judges were given the opportunity to receive the vaccine earlier this month.
Hospital officials told WBEZ that they misunderstood city guidelines on the vaccine, saying that they "erroneously" believed that judges were eligible in the current phase of the city's vaccination plan.
Judges are not eligible to receive vaccines until Phase 1C, according to the publication.
According to the Associated Press, Miller said in a memo to hospital staff that 72 restaurant, hospital and other support personnel at Trump International Chicago were vaccinated by hospital workers. Chicago restaurant workers and hotel staff aren’t currently eligible for the vaccine.
Miller said the workers inoculated earlier this month were largely Black and Brown residents of the community around the hospital who were unable to leave their jobs during regular hours.
"This effort was one of multiple off-site community vaccination initiatives undertaken by The Loretto Hospital in accordance with its mission of ensuring vaccine accessibility to the minority communities hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the hospital said in a statement.
Miller wrote the hospital was under the mistaken belief restaurant and other frontline hospitality industry workers were considered ‘essential’ under the City of Chicago’s 1B eligibility requirements.
“I now understand, after subsequent conversations with the Chicago Department of Public Health, that we were mistaken,” Miller wrote.
As for the church vaccination event, Loretto said in a statement that Miller "reached out directly to CDPH before the hospital agreed to provide vaccines to eligible recipients at his church."
"CDPH informed Mr. Miller that as long as the recipients lived, worked, or received medical care in the city and were 1A or 1B-eligible they could be vaccinated," the statement read.
Loretto Hospital, a 122-bed facility in the Austin neighborhood was the site of Chicago’s ceremonial first COVID-19 vaccination. City officials say the community around the hospital was hard hit by COVID-19. One in every 430 people died from the virus in the past 10 months, compared with 1 in every 605 residents citywide, according to the city’s Public Health Department.
"With a laser focus on the Austin community, we are reviewing all vaccination distribution practices at the hospital. We are working with the hospital executive and medical teams to put control measures in place to ensure strict adherence to City of Chicago and Chicago Department of Public Health vaccine eligibility requirements and reporting protocols moving forward," the board's statement read Friday. "We will not allow any of this to derail us from our commitment to serving a community disproportionately devasted [sic] by the COVID-19 pandemic."
