A Pakistani doctor from Texas has been fired for stealing 10 doses of Moderna vaccine which is due for expiration in six hours time.
According to authorities, Dr. Hasan Gokal, who worked for Harris County Public Health, stole a vial containing 10 doses of the Moderna vaccine.
He has also been charged for administering the 10 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to acquaintances, strangers with one to his wife.
Speaking with the New York Times, Dr. Gokal said, "It was my world coming down. To have everything collapse on you. God, it was the lowest moment in my life."
He had been charged with a misdemeanor count of theft by a public servant, but the case was dismissed by criminal court judge Franklin Bynum.
"In the number of words usually taken to describe an allegation of retail shoplifting, the State attempts, for the first time, to criminalise a doctor's documented administration of vaccine doses during a public health emergency,' Bynum wrote. 'The Court emphatically rejects this attempted imposition of the criminal law on the professional decisions of a physician."
According to DailyMail, Prosecutors have vowed that they plan to take the case to a grand jury, portraying the doctor as a calculated opportunist.
In the early days of the pandemic, Dr. Gokal who had immigrated from Pakistan to study medicine in New York, lived in a hotel and then moved out of the apartment scared of infecting his wife, Maria - one of the people he gave vaccine to.
The 47-year-old suffers from pulmonary sarcoidosis, a disease in the lungs that leaves Maria winded after doing little activity.
Trying to avoid the vaccine getting wasted, he reportedly tried all he could to look for eligible persons to consume them.
Calling other colleagues but not getting answers, Dr. Gokal started his drive home to Sugar Land and began calling people from his cellphone's contact list, asking if they had older relatives or neighbors who needed to be vaccinated.
"No one I was really intimately familiar with," Dr. Gokal explained. "I wasn't that close to anyone."
When he got home, a woman in her mid-60s with cardiac issues and a woman in her early-70s with a myriad of health problems were waiting outside. Both were given shots of the vaccine.
The doctor and his wife then drove to a nearby Sugar Land home and immunised four people there. Those included a man in his late 60s with health issues; the man's 90-something bed-bound mother; his mother-in-law, a woman in her mid-80s with severe dementia; and his wife, caregiver for her mother.
He later reportedly drove to a nearby household to administer a dose of the remaining four to a woman in her late 70s.
He then gave the the remaining doses to three persons one of which is an acquaintance in her mid 50s and a middle-aged woman who he hadn't met but whose child relies on a ventilator.
However, the last person who was supposed to get the last dose called the doctor to inform him of his inability to meet him within the stipulated time, as the time on the vaccine was running out.
Dr. Gokal then turned to his wife, who was eligible for the vaccine given her condition.
"I didn't intend to give this to you, but in a half-hour I'm going to have to dump this down the toilet," he claimed to tell her.
His wife was naturally hesitant, wondering if it was the right thing to do. The couple had 15 minutes left to act.
"It makes perfect sense,' he said he answered. 'We don't want any doses wasted, period."
Dr. Gokal would submit the paperwork on the 10 people he vaccinated the following morning. He also told his supervisor and colleagues what he had done and why.
Apart from being indicted for illegal administration of vaccines, he has been ostracised by hospitals.
"Many were calling me for support, telling me, 'We know you better than that.'"
"But there were a lot of people who didn't call.," he said.
(DailyMail)
0 Comments
Add comment