Shelby rebukes health dept., seeks state’s vaccine help
The Shelby County Commission on Monday passed a resolution that calls for the state of Tennessee to help the local health department with COVID-19 vaccine logistics. The vote was 13-0, and its unanimous passage is a clear rebuke to the local health department, which has recently dealt with high-profile mixups in the vaccination process.
Earlier Monday, several county commissioners criticized county health department officials for recent missteps, including ongoing problems with COVID-19 vaccine signups, a contradictory set of announcements last week about water-related restaurant closures, and recent loss of more than 1,300 COVID-19 vaccine doses due to spoilage.
The Tennessee Department of Health already announced that it has deployed personnel to Shelby County to “review handling procedures and assess the Shelby County Health Department’s inventory of vaccines.”
Dr. Bruce Randolph, the county health officer, said the department is investigating the loss of the vaccine.
Commissioner Mick Wright said he’s hearing a lot of criticism of the health department. “I know there have been calls for leadership change. And that’s really, you know, that’s something that I think should be a last resort,” said on the video call with health department leaders.
“But at this point, I think people are very frustrated with the health department. And so I’m hearing it all the time. And people are asking us — and asking me — why we are not holding the health department accountable.”
Wright finished by urging Randolph to remember that his words on issues like restaurant closures have real-world impacts.
He was referring to what happened on Friday. At a noon Friday announcement, Randolph had said a new health directive requires all businesses that use water to be closed as long as the MLGW boil water advisory is in place.
At 1:30 p.m. Friday in a MLGW press conference, Randolph clarified his statement, saying that if a restaurant can safely use boiled water or use bottled water, it can remain open.
On Monday, Randolph acknowledged he misspoke on this issue at first: “I admit that initially, I may have jumped the gun in terms of not making it clear.”
Much of Monday’s discussion focused not on the restaurant closure issue, but on the vaccine signup process.
The local vaccine operation has faced numerous problems, including long lines, spot shortages of vaccines, people being turned away, difficulty in online signups, and a phone hotline that’s sometimes hard to use.
The health department is in the process of handing over control of the Pipkin Building vaccination site to the city of Memphis.
Commissioner Mark Billingsley said the health department leaders have degrees in science and health care, not degrees in logistics. Since they aren’t trained to run a complex logistics operation, they should look for others in the Memphis area who have logistics expertise, he said.
“This commissioner is just begging you to consider doing what we do really well. And then let’s ask others for help . . . And let’s try to predict what we can predict. Because the commissioners and the health department are running out of excuses. And I say that in a kind way, I don’t say that in a derogatory way. But we got to get our arms around this.”
Haushalter acknowledged ongoing problems, including with scheduling second doses of the two-dose vaccine. But she said it’s important to keep the big picture in mind.
“Lastly, I do want to highlight that despite any less than perfect operations locally, we have vaccinated well over 100,000 people within Shelby County, and that statewide we’ve actually done a better job at reaching communities of color,” she said.
“We do appreciate the continued feedback, we will continue to work with partners to improve our overall delivery through the joint task force and continue to ask people’s patience as we really do something that’s unprecedented historically.”
“We have had pandemics historically, but never to this volume.”