PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Horsham resident Theresa Kearns goes to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in University City every three weeks for cancer immunotherapy treatment.
Because she is high risk and has a compromised immune system, she asked her oncologist for the COVID-19 vaccine — and was denied.
“She said, ‘I can’t. I’m not allowed,’ ” recalled Kearns. “ ‘I would love to, but we’re not permitted.’ ”
Many others who live in the suburbs but receive treatment at Philadelphia hospitals for serious diseases are learning they cannot get vaccinated at those hospitals. The jurisdictional issue between the city and the Pennsylvania Department of Health is frustrating both health care providers and their patients.
“It is frustrating for us,” said Dr. Deborah Driscoll, Penn Medicine senior vice president of clinical services, “because ideally, we’d love to vaccinate as many Penn Medicine patients as quickly and as equitably as we can.”
She said Penn Medicine has around 300,000 patients in the suburbs who qualify for the vaccine, along with 200,000 who live in the city.
Philadelphia gets its vaccine supply directly from the federal government, while the other 66 counties go through the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
Philadelphia health officials say they are forced to clamp down on residency after about 40% of vaccine doses they have received so far have gone to people who live outside the city.
In January, Driscoll said Penn Medicine asked the Pennsylvania Department of Health for vaccine doses for its Radnor and Valley Forge locations, which would go to its patients who live in the suburbs but haven’t received the vaccine.
“We applied to the state of Pennsylvania to become a vaccine provider but we have not received vaccine directly from the state,” she added.
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In response, department spokesperson Barry Ciccocioppo said vaccine supply is limited everywhere.
“We also know that people from Philadelphia are getting vaccinated in the collar counties,” he said. “One of the things you have to consider there is if the state allocation would go to outside of the 66-county area that the state is responsible for, where is it going to come from?”
The state website says about 47,000 Philadelphia residents have received the vaccine from Pennsylvania’s supply outside of the city.
Amid the territorial back-and-forth, patients like Kearns are left in the lurch.
“It just seems very devastating to people in my position,” she said. “Why can’t they kind of try to accommodate people at high risk?”