Chief medical officer admits mistake

Chief medical officer admits mistake
It was a breach of the regulations to approve vaccines for diplomats, admits the country’s top health official
Lars Fodgaard Møller, chief medical officer and head of the Covid-19 vaccination committee, has been reprimanded by the Minister of Health
 
03.03.2021 - 16:54

“I made a mistake in approving the request from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to vaccinate two Faroese diplomats and their spouses.”

So says chief medical officer Lars Fodgaard Møller, referring to two heads of representation offices abroad, along with their spouses, being approved for Covid vaccines ahead of schedule.

“The approval was made in mid-January, at the early stages of our vaccination programme, and the decision seemed right at the time seeing as these people were due to travel to high-risk areas,” he says.

 >> SEE ALSO “Immense pressure" on vaccination authorities

“The vaccination regulations do not allow for these types of exemptions. Looking back, it is clear that I made a mistake and I apologise for that.”

He admits that his decision to approve the request was somewhat swayed by the fact that it came from as high as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Health minister Kaj Leo Holm Johannesen said in a press release today that he has given the chief medical officer a reprimand for this error of judgement.

Smyril Line management on ‘acute list’

As reported this morning, parts of the Smyril Line management also received the jab before travelling to Denmark for the unveiling of ferry Norrøna after its makeover.

This was also in breach of the vaccination regulations.

Tummas í Garði, COO of the Hospital Service and a member of the vaccination committee, has claimed responsibility for this approval.

 >> SEE ALSO Vaccine notifications sent to all in due course

A request from the Smyril Line management resulted in a few key staff members of the company ending up on the ‘acute list’, and they were vaccinated on 15 January.

”There was a lot for us to learn at the start of the vaccination process, so perhaps some decisions were not quite ideal at the time,” says Garði.

“We had some issues with leftover doses at the end of each day in the beginning. If these doses were not administered quickly, we had to throw them out.”

 >> SEE ALSO Hospital boss: vaccinations completed by summer

“So we established a list of people we could call at short notice in case we had some leftovers. And in all our rush, parts of the Smyril Line management ended up on this list.”

He denies that he approved the request because he felt indebted to Smyril Line, which has played a key part in the Covid testing programme.

Smyril Line has also offered to assist with the vaccination efforts.

Vaccinations resumed yesterday

The latest vaccination figures on corona.fo, updated this morning, show that 4,211 people (7.9 percent of the population) have received the first shot of the vaccine, while 2,830 (5.3 percent) have received the second shot.

No new Covid cases were registered yesterday.

For further information about Covid-19 in the Faroes, visit corona.fo.

 

Read the Faroese version of this article here

Translated by prosa.fo

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