A sign on a door into a screening area at Oregon State Hospital on Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
Douglas Styles, 49, has diabetes and high blood pressure. Both place him at risk for a more serious case of Covid, so he wanted a booster dose of the vaccine as soon as they became available.
But Styles can’t walk to a Salem pharmacy for his shot. For more than a decade, he’s been a patient at Oregon State Hospital and must rely on the state to provide his medical care.
Styles got his first dose of the Moderna vaccine in January as Oregon’s rollout prioritized people living in congregate settings like prisons and nursing homes where the virus was more likely to spread.
When federal agencies OKed booster doses of Moderna in late October, he said he asked health care providers and administrators at the hospital when patients would be able to get their shots. He said he never got a clear answer.
“They say, ‘Oh you’re gonna get them on this day,’ and then that’s pushed back and that’s pushed back so we never really get a true answer about when we’re going to get anything,” he said.
The hospital began offering its employees Covid booster shots Oct. 27, hospital spokeswoman Aria Seligmann said, but didn’t begin vaccinating patients with booster doses until Dec. 1.
As of Monday, the hospital, which cares for Oregonians with mental illnesses and disabilities who are court-ordered to receive treatment, had given booster shots to just 24 of its approximately 500 patients.
Styles lives on the hospital’s Bird 3 unit. Seligmann said that unit is due to receive boosters Dec. 8.
Booster doses of Covid vaccines were initially approved by federal health agencies for people over 65, those with underlying health conditions, and people whose job or living situations placed them at high risk of contracting the virus.
The agencies recommend people get a booster six months after their second dose of Covid vaccine.
Because Oregon State Hospital patients live in an institution, any adult who wanted a booster would have qualified under federal guidelines. Many, including Styles, were also eligible on the basis of underlying health conditions, age or both.
On Nov. 19, federal agencies said any adult in the U.S. could get a booster shot.
The Oregon Health Authority listed the state hospital’s Salem campus in its most recent report of active Covid outbreaks in Oregon, with 97 cases of the virus recorded since the outbreak began in April. The most recent of those began showing symptoms Nov. 13, the report said.
That count does not distinguish between patients and staff.
The hospital’s response is in contrast to the Oregon Department of Corrections, which made Moderna boosters available to people incarcerated in state prisons on Oct. 25, four days after federal approval, according to a letter the department sent to people in its custody.
As of Friday, the department had administered more than 4,200 booster shots, spokesperson Jennifer Black said, about one third of the state’s adult prison population.
Asked why the department delayed offering the shots to patients, Seligmann said in an email, “When they were approved, OSH set up clinics for staff first, because our patients are at highest risk of exposure by staff who unwittingly bring the virus to work.” She said the hospital then had to offer flu vaccines to patients to meet its requirements for the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Organizations, a national nonprofit organization which accredits the hospital.
Seligmann said the hospital’s approach is effective because stopping staff from transmitting Covid is the best way to protect patients.
“OSH uses the same strategy for annual influenza vaccination for the same reason: Patient exposure is nearly always from staff who are contagious before they know they’re sick. The logistics involved in vaccinating staff and patients on two campuses while continuing to provide necessary patient care requires staff to vaccinate these groups separately,” she wrote in an email.
She said medical staff spend time answering patient questions on units when providing vaccinations.
“Vaccinations are not mandated, but some patients need a little extra time and reassurance. There is never any intention to delay providing medical care to patients,” she wrote.
Disability Rights Oregon, a Portland-based nonprofit organization which monitors patient care at the hospital, said they weren’t aware of the delay until Salem Reporter inquired, but questioned the hospital’s reasoning and said boosters should be prioritized immediately for patients who want them.
In a statement, Tom Stenson, the group’s deputy legal director for disability rights said there’s “nothing about prioritizing staff that means patients should be two months behind.”
“People with disabilities residing in a treatment setting should have the first opportunity to choose vaccines that reduce their risk of contracting COVID-19. As we saw at the beginning of the pandemic and continue to observe, congregate care facilities like state hospitals are the most susceptible places for COVID-19 outbreaks,” Stenson wrote.
“Numerous residents at the state hospital are elderly individuals with dementia and other age-related neurological disabilities who are especially vulnerable to COVID and most in need of boosters. At the same time that the state hospital has moved slowly on offering COVID boosters to its patients, the hospital is citing the ongoing COVID pandemic as a reason for lengthy delays of admission for some patients, a reason to confine patients in lengthy quarantines, and a reason to otherwise limit care for patients,” he continued.
Styles said he wasn’t aware prisoners in state custody received boosters weeks before state hospital patients, but said he wasn’t surprised to learn the state Department of Corrections acted more quickly.
“DOC does a lot of stuff better than the Oregon State Hospital,” he said.
Ardeshir Tabrizian contributed reporting.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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