A Texas doctor who distributed 10 doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine off-site has been fired. Dr. Hasan Gokal, who was working for a health department in the Houston-area, said the doses would have otherwise been discarded. The Houston Chronicle reports:
Gokal said he called a supervisor at the health department, who knew of no available patients. He then used contacts in his cellphone and administered about nine doses off-site to eligible recipients: elderly residents or those with certain medical conditions. Unable to find any other recipient, Gokal said he gave the final dose to his chronically ill wife after 11 p.m.
“After midnight, and with just minutes before the vaccine became unusable, the doctor, Hasan Gokal, gave the last dose to his wife, who has a pulmonary disease that leaves her short of breath.” #HighRiskTX #HighRiskCovid19
— Alice Wong (@SFdirewolf) February 11, 2021
Soon after Gokal was fired and criminally charged in connection with the incident. According to the New York Times, “The officials maintained that he had violated protocol and should have returned the remaining doses to the office or thrown them away, the doctor recalled.”
The Chronicle notes that the charges were quickly dropped with the judge on the case saying “In the number of words usually taken to describe an allegation of retail shoplifting, the State attempts, for the first time, to criminalize a doctor’s documented administration of vaccine doses during a public health emergency.”
The Times notes that “both the Texas Medical Association and the Harris County Medical Society recently issued a statement of support for physicians like Dr. Gokal who find themselves scrambling ‘to avoid wasting the vaccine in a punctured vial.'”
“It is difficult to understand any justification for charging any well-intentioned physician in this situation with a criminal offense.”
There are questions about whether Gokal’s race and the race of those he vaccinated also played some role in this.
“Are you suggesting that there were too many Indian names in that group?” Dr. Gokal said he asked.
Exactly, he said he was told.”
This story is horrifying. https://t.co/pVn9ZEZ0Mz
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) February 11, 2021
His name is Dr. Hasan Gokal, and he's a hero https://t.co/GAE4db3xZo
— Andrew Rettek (@oscredwin) February 11, 2021
Despite the support and the lack of charges now, Gokal told the Times that “he continues to pay a price for not wasting a vaccine in a pandemic.”
He spends his time volunteering at a nonprofit health clinic for the uninsured, haunted all the while by the realization that no matter what, it will still be out there: the story about that Pakistani doctor in Houston who stole all those vaccines.
“How can I take it back?” that doctor asked.
Gokal’s attorneys are now reportedly looking into filing a wrongful termination lawsuit. Watch more from CBS affiliate in Houston above.
