Flu shot demand high, supply low for pharmacist
A pharmacist is upset he is unable to give people the flu shot after being blocked by the province from receiving more doses.
Jason Hinton, owner of Sullivan’s IDA Pharmacy on Hunter Street in East City, grew concerned after the ministry suspended his pharmacy’s ability to order more flu shots.
Hinton said since the Ontario government encouraged people to get a flu shot, people have been calling him steadily.
“From that day, we have just been inundated with phone calls asking when they can get it,” he said. “At that time, we didn’t really have any idea of when we were getting them.”
He said flu shots in pharmacies usually don’t usually start until around the beginning of
November. Hinton said the pharmacy was able to order about half of the doses he was able to order last year. The surge of interest in the flu vaccine, combined with COVID-19
regulations for physical distancing, made it a slow process to get the shot to everyone who wanted one at the pharmacy and at a clinic he set up in a neighbourhood church.
“We knew we were getting 325 doses in our initial shipment which would be guaranteed to arrive by Oct.16,” he said. “So we made a plan to say OK, so we can do so many per day in store, a week and a half wasn’t going to be enough time to go through all of those doses, so we decided to book Mark Street United Church for Oct. 24.”
Hinton said he had offered 160 appointments for the flu clinic and administered 157 doses, which was well above the threshold to order more the following day when the ministry started taking orders again.
“Regardless of how much you used leading up to that, you couldn’t order anything until Oct. 25,” he said. “I knew there was a guideline that said you
have to have used up 40 per cent of your doses before you could reorder.”
He said he found out the Friday before his clinic the ministry had taken an early count of his doses on the Wednesday prior and informed him he had fallen short by three per cent.
“(They) said you have only used 37 per cent and we are cutting you off and suspending you for an entire week from reordering.”
He said he has reached out to MPP Dave Smith about the issue.
“He apparently has reached out to the ministry and has not gotten back to me with any response. I don’t know where that is going,” he said.
Smith responded to an Examiner query by email Thursday.
“While I understand Mr. Hinton’s frustration in not receiving a second shipment, I am extremely disappointed that he chose to hold on to vaccines and not distribute them in a timely fashion,” wrote Smith. “The purpose of getting the first shipment of vaccines was for the pharmacy to vaccinate people in our area. Once Sullivan’s Pharmacy follows through and uses the vaccines they were shipped they will be eligible to receive more vaccines as part of the third and fourth scheduled shipments.”
Hinton expects to have more vaccine before he gets a response resolving the issue.
“It is frustrating,” he said. “I have 500 people on a waiting list calling me daily and my hands are just tied up in red tape.”