I’m not here to discuss whether people should or should not get the H1N1 vaccine. I think there are plenty of good reasons to get it, IE patients with chronic medical problems where getting H1N1 would really knock them out. And there are good reasons not to get it, IE most patients I’ve seen with active H1N1 do just fine.
Either way, my husband and I made a firm decision to get it for our kids and me. I was really hoping to get it before my ER rotation started. And as both my kids are under 5 and need two shots each, we were really hoping to have them get it before we head to China again for the holidays. Not that they are at increased risk of getting it in China, it would just be an extreme inconvenience to be sick while traveling.
Once we’ve made our decisions, next came the hard part. Where in the heck can we get the H1N1 vaccine? We kept calling our doctor’s office (Woodland Healthcare), and they always have the same answer “no and don’t know when.” We called all the pharmacies in the area and got the same response.
Kaiser had both the H1N1 injectable and nasal vaccine for 1-2 weeks prior to anybody else. However, you have to be a Kaiser member. We were willing to pay or even join, but got rejected. It seems to me this was poor planning to distribute a large amount of vaccines in high demand only to a subset of population and not allow any access to other parts of the population that would really need it. What can you do, it’s a private organization and it will take care of its own. (I have my own biases against Kaiser as I have in the past applied for medical insurance when I first got pregnant, obviously for the pregnancy. And I was DENIED for having a medical condition such as pregnancy. My nanny recently broke her collarbone, and while broken collarbone typically don’t need surgeries her Kaiser FP and orthopedic doctor decided she did. One would assume on the basis that her’s might have been more emergent until I heard it was scheduled for a week later.)
Back to the H1N1 vaccine status:
We started following the news and calling county health departments.
Where we live we are close to three counties: Sacramento, Yolo, and Solano.
Sacramento was the first we heard that had the nasal H1N1 vaccine. My daughter qualifies for it but not my son. We decided to wait for the injectables so that they can get it both at the same time and it would be easier to track for us.
Then Yolo County Health Department got their shipment of nasal H1N1 vaccines. My mother-in-law, my husband and I must have called multiple times that day to confirm that I, a medical student, would qualify as a health care worker. I get off work early to drive 50 minutes out of my way to be turned away. They were only giving it to children ages 9 and younger and pregnant women and women with children less than 6 months of age. I was a little annoyed that they answering service was so unprofessional and uninformed, I wasted my time going up there. However, I was okay with being turned away as long as they were prioritizing. I don’t want bad karma following me just because I took a vaccine that belong to a little kid.
Solano County Health Department gets their shipment of nasal H1N1 vaccines and the day before they start their clinics, they also get their injectables. The best part about them is that they have an amazing phone line to call for information. Their website was constantly updated. And a very awesome person that worked in the department that deserves so much kudos, took down my husbands and my names and numbers. She called us every time with updates on the vaccine clinics.
Their first clinic they only had nasal H1N1. I decided to go myself to check it out. I got there maybe 5 minutes after they were supposed to start. It was a very cold and windy day. The line was already maybe 100 people long. I’m very happy I didn’t bring my kids that day, if they weren’t sick, they would have been sick afterwards from just the wind. The clinic got started a little bit late, however, they were extremely efficient once they opened their doors. I got my nasal H1N1 vaccine in about 1 hour. Instead of actively screening like Yolo County was. They were passively screening. They had on a form that listed the criteria for getting the vaccine and this time it included health care workers and specifically said emergency personnel. And it asked that people who do not qualify – please do not ask for a vaccine. Otherwise they did not ask anybody or turned anybody away, except for technical details like getting the nasal seasonal less than 4 weeks ago, etc.
The next day, Solano Health Department was hosting another H1N1 vaccine clinic, this time with both nasal and injectable form. We decided to bring the kids this time. I thought that the line would be perhaps the same, not much worse. I was very wrong. The line outside was very long. My husband went to wait in line while the kids slept in the car and then when they woke up, I took them to a local park. It took maybe 1.5 hours to get to the front of the door. Once inside we got a number, we were 133. They were calling number 85. There were people coughing and sneezing all in the waiting area. So once again we took turns taking the kids outside. This wait wasn’t too bad, maybe 30 minutes.
Our number gets called and we’re thinking, okay very soon now. We go inside and there is yet another line for the injectable vaccines. It is a short line, maybe 20 people, but it was a good 1.5 hour wait. It was hot and stuffy. There was a mother in front of me with 3 kids. She had an older daughter around 6 or 7, a toddler in her right arm and an infant in a carseat in her left arm. She was amazing.
Total time wait for H1N1 injectables would be 1 month by the phone and then 3.5 hours in line. I kept thinking, these poor infants/toddlers waiting so long just to get poked by a needle and this is a good thing?!
Now then next step is to just hope that when it comes time around for their boosters, there will be enough left.
And how ironic is this. My son also needed two shots of the seasonal flu vaccine, being this is the first time he is getting it. I had originally decided to wait to try to get them at the same time – nobody wants to go to the doctors multiple times just for shots. Of course, now, we cannot find seasonal flu shots anywhere. My doctors is out of them, tells us to call local pharmacies. We called every singly pharmacy in the area and many don’t have them, if they do, they do not do pediatric seasonal flu shots.
My husband and I had another heart to heart talk at this point and decided the seasonal flu shot – not as important this year.
Good luck to all those this season dealing with H1N1 madness!
