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At our last meeting, Russell Baxley, President and CEO of Beaufort Memorial Hospital, spoke and took questions about COVID-19 in the Lowcountry. Baxley explained that when the state sent out a message two weeks ago to residents over 70 years old to call their hospital for an appointment to get their first vaccine shot, they didn't realize how many people were in that age bracket. Baxley said Beaufort Memorial Hospital has approximately 20,000 patients over 70. On top of that, they only received approximately 450 first doses and no second doses so they had to cancel any appointments that were made. They've worked with the state officials, DHEC and other hospitals around the state, and he believes they've worked the kinks out of the initial distribution plan. He also said that they started to receive more doses-950 more doses were delievered the weekend prior to our meeting and, as of the morning of our meeting, he said they were scheduled to receive 2500 more doses soon. If you had a scheduled appointment with BMH that was canceled, you do not need to do anything. Baxley said the hospital has everyone's contact information, and they are calling people in the order in which they were initially scheduled to re-schedule their vaccine appointment. The long-term ditribution plan for BMH according to Baxley is to run two clinics to administer vaccine doses regularly and, also, to have a mass vaccine event for 1,000 people and then 21 days later the same 1,000 people would come back to the same location for their second shot. If your physician's office is in the BMH network, and you haven't scheduled a vaccine appointment, someone from BMH will reach out to you by email to set up an appointment. The email will contain a link to schedule an appointment. If your netowrk provider does not have your email address then you will need to reach out to BMH to schedule your vaccine. Stay safe everyone, and thanks very much to Russell Baxley for speaking to us and giving much needed information about Beaufort Memorial Hospital's vaccination process and plan. |
