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Oct 6, 2009 6:17 pm US/Eastern
Local Doctors Swamped With Requests For H1N1 Shots
SOUTH HILLS (KDKA) ―
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A young girl receives the H1N1 nasal mist vaccination at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx on Oct. 6, 2009.
CBS
For a couple of weeks now, a local pediatrics office has been getting hundreds of calls a day.
Parents are all asking for the same thing - an H1N1 vaccine for their child.
"Right now we're probably every other call has to do with H1N1 or the flu," says Melissa Walton, who handles phone triage at Children's Community Pediatrics in the South Hills.
But they don't have any to give.
It makes Walton feel bad to tell the parents that her office hasn't received its supply yet.
"By word of mouth you hear other people have the vaccine, and we do not have the vaccine, so we explain to them it's government-issued, so we're just waiting for it," she said.
"It's frustrating," Dr. Mark Diamond of Children's Community Pediatrics said. "One would like to be able to offer to the patients necessary things as soon as possible."
Normally, doctors order vaccine directly from the manufacturers. With H1N1, it goes to the local and state health departments who then take orders from schools, hospitals and doctors.
"We all know there's a distribution issue related to the vaccine getting from the company through the government to the various sites, whether it's an office or a hospital or a clinic," explains Dr. Diamond, "and there's nothing we can do about that, and we just have to be patient and hope it comes sooner rather than later."
Some pediatricians are scheduling special vaccine clinics. For example, at Children's Community Pediatrics, they will have one on Saturday afternoons for the next three weeks.
"We process as many as 300 or 400 patients in an afternoon," says Dr. Diamond. "We prepare all the paperwork ahead of time, we have the vaccine ready to go."
A family can be in and out in 15 minutes.
You can make your appointment now for a regular flu shot. You'll get your H1N1 flu shot at the same time if it's available. Otherwise, you'll have to come back for that some other time.
Dr. Diamond hopes that the vaccine he ordered arrives in the next week.
"We tell parents if you have the option of getting the vaccine elsewhere, it's okay to do that," Dr. Diamond reassures.
Even the county health department doesn't have its H1N1 vaccine yet, but it could come later this week.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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