Two cancer patients jumped Covid vaccination queue

Two cancer patients were vaccinated against the coronavirus by GGD Brabant Zuidoost last week, despite the fact that they are not in the priority groups currently eligible for vaccination. They pleaded for a shot and the local GGD workers gave in, AD reports.

On Thursday, a 78-year-old man went to the GGD vaccination center at the Indoor Sports Center in Eindhoven. He said he has leukemia and is starting chemotherapy in March. He wanted to get vaccinated while he was still fit enough, but despite support from his oncologist and doctor, he could not get an appointment because he had no invitation, he said. After consultation, the GGD employees decided to give him a shot.

The next day, a much younger cancer patient went to the same vaccination center. He has esophageal cancer and will have to undergo a major operation. He would like to be vaccinated beforehand. The GGD employees told him no, but he waited around all day. At the end of the day he got one of the vaccines that was leftover. These usually go to vaccination employees, but one said it was fine that the man be given her vaccine.

GGD Brabant Zuidoost director Ellis Jeurnissen had a talk with his employees and instructed not to do this again immediately after he heard about it. "My employees have sent a hundred people away at the gate because they did not have an appointment. These two were helped, out of good intentions. We have forgiven them. I have made an exception myself in a different kind of harrowing situation. And yet: this cannot be and is not allowed. If I allow employees at the vaccination center to decide for themselves who gets a shot, then the floodgates will open."