Shooting down the flu

Dave Brooks

Hundreds descended on Huntington Beach Hospital Saturday for a dose

of hard-to-find flu vaccine.

A shipment of about 1,700 vaccinations -- the only the hospital

had to give out this year -- were available for the throng of mostly

seniors who formed a massive line that snaked around the building and

through the parking lot. Despite the large response, the average wait

was only about an hour, thanks to the coordination efforts of about

50 hospital volunteers who administered the free clinic.

“I was a little worried when I saw the line, but it went really

fast,” Westminster resident Ben Sundy said. “I actually had a very

nice time.”

Overseas manufacturing problems with Northern California-based

pharmaceutical corporation Chiron cut the country’s flu vaccine

availability in half. That left hospitals like the one in Huntington

Beach without any doses to give to patients or its own medical staff,

said pharmacist Damian Woods.

In October, the Orange County Health agency turned its own doses

over to the hospital to be administered to the public.

“It’s part of our national effort to redistribute the flu

vaccine,” county health spokesperson Howard Sutter said.

This year the agency was only allocated about 24,000 doses, less

than half the 58,000 units it typically receives. The agency then

distributed the vaccine to 14 separate medical facilities, including

the one in Huntington Beach.

“This whole clinic is built around a lot of brain power,” said

Kathleen Curran, the hospital’s director of Business Development who

helped coordinate the weekend effort.

After patients made it to the front of the line, they were sent to

an assembly line system to get the shot and have a doughnut or sweets

for moral. For those patients who weren’t able to wait in the line,

nurses were dispatched to their cars, said Huntington Beach Mayor

Cathy Green, a nurse who serves on the hospital’s board of directors.

“We got a lot of fantastic comments from people who said the line

was moving quickly and they were so happy and grateful,” she said.

Many people lined up several hours early for the event that was

scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. The first person in line was a woman

who showed up at 4:30 a.m.

“Someone came out and found her in a corner, shaking cold,” Curran

said. “So we bundled her up and gave her a flu shot.”

Most of volunteer nurses and medical staff seemed to be in good

spirits, not missing an opportunity to laugh -- like when a nurse

seemed hesitant to give a shot to a man with a national icon tattooed

to his upper arm.

“I just don’t feel right sticking a needle into the Statue of

Liberty,” Nurse Rebecca Jones said.

The patients seemed to be happy too, she said.

“When I first saw the line, I have to admit I was a little scared,

but overall, people have been pretty patient,” Jones said.

There hasn’t been a single confirmed case of influenza in Orange

County this year, Sutter said, but the flu season is just beginning.

Additional clinics will be held in Orange County throughout the

week, but health officials will only give vaccines to patients who

meet certain criteria -- most have to be 65 years or older or suffer

from chronic medical conditions. Pregnant women and medical workers

also qualify.

For locations of the clinics, visit https://www.ochealthinfo.com.