83. Waiting in line

Waiting in line

 

A few days ago Governor Brown opened the Oregon vaccination program up to all seniors over 65. On Wednesday at noon I heard that I should call the local health providers to get an appointment. I didn’t get to it until an email at 3:30 reminded me. I called and was told that I am on a wait list, with more drugs on the way. Last night we learned on TV news that Health Secretary Azar’s promise to release all vaccine reserves was a hollow pledge; the reserves had already been shipped. Today’s noon program on OPB says the state’s plan must retrench. Seniors get back in line.

 

Word of the local situation spread by email and word of mouth. The governor’s remarks also run out the public and private communications lines to health care providers, drugstores, and other pandemic response teams in a kind of gossip game fury, with teams A, B, and C wondering what it means for their hospitals, pharmacies, nursing homes, counties. 

 

This kind of disjointed set of messages and actions has been part of the vaccine rollout from day one. It’s easy to blame the Trump administration for the glitches that sabotaged the promised “20 million injections before the New Year,” and that have followed with every step of the Covid Crisis. But….

 

Fifty-five years ago I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in a small Turkish village. We had an impetigo outbreak and went to Turkish doctors to ask what we should do.

They loaded us up with purple medicine and sent us back to the village. Another time, my neighbor’s small son was kicked in the head by a donkey. Mom and I carried him to the main road and flagged a tractor pulling a wagonload of passengers. I held the boy as we bounced the 20 kilometers into the city, Diyarbakir, and then caught a horse drawn cab to the government hospital. The wound was swabbed with iodine, dusted with sulfa, and sewn with a staple. 

 

At some point in our dealings with local health authorities, a young doctor doing his military service lectured us on the differences between American health care and what he was doing. “I am responsible for the health of this city and state. We have to patch the wounds and prevent the spread of diseases as best we can with the whole community in mind,” he said. We don’t have the luxury of individualizing every outbreak and every procedure.”

 

There are times when individualism and competition are not the most efficient ways of getting a big job done.

 

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