PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Many people are confused and concerned about when and how they’ll get the COVID-19 vaccine. One Montgomery County EMS director shares how he figured out and got clarity on the process.
Ken Davidson, assistant chief at Second Alarmers Rescue Squad in Willow Grove, said as EMS workers, they understood they’d be part of the first group to get vaccinated.
But as they watched hospital staff getting the vaccine, they started getting concerned they might be slipping through the cracks.
“We weren’t able to get clarity on it,” he said.
Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine said health systems and hospitals would be in charge of distribution of vaccines to EMS workers who were not directly affiliated with hospitals.
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But when Davidson asked, he was told something different.
“The response that we got basically was, ‘we’re certainly willing be of help the solution, but we need guidance and information and we also need vaccines to give you.’ And everything we could tell and the people we were speaking with, they had not been given clear guidance,” he explained.
Montgomery County officials finally stepped in and established guidelines, he said.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health is now requiring hospitals to set aside 10% of all vaccines they receive for non-affiliated healthcare workers, but confusion remains.