Probe, penalty await vaccinator in failed jab

The Department of Health (DOH) said it would look into an incident involving a Makati City volunteer nurse who failed to inject a COVID-19 vaccine to a recipient, even as an official of the National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19 had ruled it as an “isolated” case.

Vivencio Dizon, deputy chief of the NTF, said the incident, caught on video that had since gone viral, was “clearly an isolated case of a health-care worker who I think was really very, very tired at that time.”

At a vaccination program in Valenzuela City on Monday, Dizon said the incident happened in Makati City and that the vaccinee was eventually able to get the shot, as confirmed to the NTF by Makati City Mayor Abigail Binay.

“This is likely human error. I think, there was nothing done intentionally here,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said in the same event in Valenzuela.

But Duque said the DOH will investigate the incident.

“We cannot tolerate such action. We will not countenance that. We will investigate and impose necessary penalty right away,” he said.

Binay: It was human error

Vaccination chief Carlito Galvez Jr., who was with Duque at the airport, sounded incredulous, adding that there were similar videos on the internet but turned out happened “in Indonesia and other areas.”

In a statement, Binay said “it was human error on the part of the volunteer nurse that was immediately corrected.”

She said the vaccinee had also asked that the vaccinator not be reprimanded.

Binay also appealed to persons sharing the video to refrain from further spreading it online and making unfounded accusations against the nurse.

“We ask simply for the public’s understanding. Our front-liners have been working for more than a year now and honestly, it’s really hard to find vaccinators these days,” Binay said.

‘Extremely rare’

Rizal Rep. Fidel Nograles threw his support behind health-care workers in the vaccination rollout and the DOH, despite the footage of the nurse’s lapse, which went viral.

“We have to focus in our efforts to achieve herd immunity and errors such as this is extremely rare,” he said in a statement on Monday.

The DOH has reminded all vaccinators “to take extra care and attention during inoculation.”

In a statement on Monday, Duque promised that “immediate improvements in the protocol shall be made to ensure we limit the chances of this from happening again.”

Meanwhile, the DOH gave assurance to the public that all available COVID-19 vaccines are safe.

—Maricar Cinco, Dona Z. Pazzibugan, Julie M. Aurelio and Jeannette I. Andrade INQ