Give Me a Shot
People say the craziest things, assertions like: “You’re a nurse. You should have no trouble getting a job giving Covid-19 vaccines,” or “I’m sure lots of companies are hiring people to give the vaccines.” If so, show me those jobs within a 25-mile radius of my location, Lancaster, PA, a mid-size city in Pennsylvania. Better yet, show me the vaccines and give me your arm. As of January 2, 2021, only 1.2 % of Pennsylvanians have received the vaccine.
To say that the vaccine rollout has been slow and disjointed is the understatement of the year. Even though we are only four days into 2021, we are 25 days out from when the FDA first gave emergency authorization for the Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, and 18 days out from Moderna’s emergency authorization. Frustratingly, my primary care physician’s office has no information for me or my husband as to when we can get the vaccine. As Ed Yong writes in The Atlantic, “There has been a certain amount of naïveté on the government about what it takes to turn vaccines into vaccinations.” At our current pace, the vaccine roll-out could take 10 years.
Meanwhile, the body count rises.
Friends of mine who live in France know exactly where they are in the vaccine queue: number 7600 and 7602; they registered online for their vaccination shots. No such organized system exists here in the good ‘ole USA, the richest country in the world — a country where only the very poor, the old, the wealthy, and the politicians have proper access to healthcare; and even then, “proper access” is often limited by geographical location and lack of culturally competent care. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), compared to 36 high-income peer nations, the U.S. has among the highest number of hospitalizations from preventable causes and the highest rate of avoidable deaths. Some of those avoidable deaths will most certainly come in 2021 due to the slow vaccine roll-out.
Back to my job search. Specifically, I am a masters-prepared Registered Nurse (RN) with 27 years nursing experience, most of those years being in a long-term care setting, with a mix of direct-care and management responsibilities. I want to be part of something bigger than me. When I learned how my grandmother lost her mother to the aftermath of the Spanish Flu of 1918, and almost lost her brother, the stage was set. Although I am semi-retired, I want to be part of the biggest vaccination campaign of the century by directly administering the vaccines, yet there appears to be no coordinated or sane response to a virus that has killed over 350,000 American lives, and thus far, no such vital job opportunities for me.
Uncle Scam is too busy playing golf, promoting conspiracy theories, crying wolf, threatening election officials and committing treason to attend to anything bigger than himself; no surprise considering the incompetence and bungled response to the pandemic by the current administration and already strained healthcare systems. Back in March, 2020, Trump claimed, “I don’t take any responsibility at all.” Now he seems to have checked out entirely. At a time when public health officials are needed most, many are leaving due to death threats and a spectacular lack of federal leadership, flagrant disregard for science, and inappropriate modeling.
One public health official in Michigan received an envelope at her home and inside it was a piece of paper that had a Nazi soldier wearing a Nazi swastika, and a Democratic donkey. It said: ‘It’s not fascism when we do it” (nbcbostom.com). Lies have consequences, especially when those lies come from the White House. Despite the threats, I still want to do my part. I want to be around a crowded table again.
According to my research, CVS and Walgreens are to be among the primary distributors and administrators of the vaccine to long-term care residences, private clinics and the general population. Hospitals, the military and the Veterans Administration (VA) seem to be on a different roll-out plan as four of my extended family members have already received the vaccine, although only two of the four are frontline nurses. The third, a psychologist, received the vaccine from her employer, the health conglomerate Kaiser Permanente, even though she works from home, and the fourth received his vaccine as a U.S. Air Force medic.
Thus far, I have submitted job applications directly to CVS and USA JOBS, and indirectly through staffing agencies for a job as an RN seeking temporary, full-time or part-time work administering the Covid-19 vaccine: now, days later, still no offers. I cannot even find opportunities for nurses on Walgreen’s career site. Nothing against pharmacy technicians — I used to be one — but I would rather receive my vaccine from an experienced nurse than anyone else. And I don’t even like needles, giving them or receiving them. So, can a nurse please give me a shot? I’ll be happy to give you your’s.
