Registered Nurse Tamara Johnson of Franciscan Health System gives Anthony Dulaney, 4, an H1N1 nasal flu vaccination last Wednesday at Key Peninsula Middle School. The clinic provided 610 H1N1 vaccines to students in five hours and only had to turn away 20 students.
Word of a free H1N1 vaccine clinic sure can draw a crowd.
More than 1,000 children and guardians snaked through the hallways, out the door and into the parking lot at Key Peninsula Middle School last Wednesday to get the H1N1 vaccination.
Some waited in line for four hours; others arrived sporadically, finding parking wherever they could, only to find themselves in the back of a seemingly endless line.
The Peninsula School District hosted the clinic, which was open to all school-aged students, and it vaccinated almost every patient.
Almost.
In five hours, 610 school-aged students received either the H1N1 shot or the mist spray. However, supplies ran out, sending 20 people home without receiving the vaccine.
“We just had more (people) than expected,” said Terry Bouck, Peninsula School District superintendent.
Bouck personally apologized to the families and students who waited in vain — and also made them a promise.
“I understand how they must have felt being in line that long,” Bouck said. “I was really sorry about the fact. I let them know I was going to put them at the front of the list for the Peninsula High School clinic (Nov. 18).”
Each school-aged patient had to fill out a questionnaire to help determine whether or not they would receive the needle or the mist vaccination.
Franciscan Health System nurses administered the shots and sprays as part of a grant to provide immunizations in rural school areas.
The grant, funded through the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, Group Health and Franciscan Healthcare, helped pay for a back-to-school vaccine clinic at KPMS in September.
Soon afterward, the district received word there was extra funding for additional clinics.
“Little did we know at the time that H1N1 would become what it became,” said Carol Jones, the lead district nurse.
“There’s no needles, so it’s not going to hurt,” said Tamara Johnson, a registered nurse who works for Franciscan Health System, as she gave 6-year-old Shaelin Dulaney the H1N1 mist vaccine.
After a quick mist spray in each nostril and a dab of tissue paper to her nose, Shaelin was all smiles; her 4-year-old brother, Anthony, was next in line.
Anthony and Shaelin’s mother, Melody Simonson, were first in line for the clinic. They got in line four hours before the 3 p.m. start — she said she wasn’t taking any chances.
But for children like Shaelin and Anthony, getting one dose is only half of the battle. Children younger than 10 may need an additional vaccination within four weeks of the first dose in order to be fully protected.
“That’s when the adventure starts,” Simonson said. “Out where they go to the doctor, they say they won’t have it until the end of November. I’ve been trying to find it everywhere.”
H1N1 vaccines are currently limited to priority groups, including but not limited to all people 6 months to 24 years old and people from 25 to 64 who have underlying health risks.
The TPCHD estimates there are 550,000 people in Pierce County who fall within one of those categories.
As of Nov. 1, more than 30 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine had been allocated across the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Nearly 335,000 doses had been shipped to Washington state.
The TPCHD has received and disbursed 41,000 doses of the H1N1 vaccine.
The Peninsula School District has seen a wave of absenteeism and sickness the past few weeks. During the week of Oct. 19, the PSD sent home 82 students who had a temperature of more than 100 degrees.
The district also contacted the TPCHD 16 times to report school absenteeism of more than 10 percent.
The week of Oct. 26 saw similar numbers: More than 90 students went home with a fever, and schools contacted the TPCHD 21 times to report high absenteeism.
In total, the TPCHD received 110 calls last week reporting absenteeism across the county.
Cheryl Menkens and her son, Charlie, 16, arrived at the school an hour early to ensure a good spot in line. Charlie, a Peninsula High School student and athlete, had no hesitations about getting the H1N1 vaccination.
“My mother insisted it,” he said. “One of my best friends got sick.”
Menkens gets a seasonal flu shot every year and has been fending off sickness so far by washing his hands and trying to stay away from sick people.
Cheryl said she heard about an athlete similar to her son’s age who wound up in intensive care because of the flu — a fate she didn’t want her son to have.
“Anything I can do to keep my kid from the swine flu, I’ll do it,” she said.
Along the sidewalk near the gymnasium, Janna Dominguez of Gig Harbor and four of her children waited patiently for their turn.
The children, ranging in age from 3 to 19, have asthma, making their need for the vaccine even more important.
“It would be safer (to get vaccinated) than to have them end up in the hospital,” she said. “I’m not taking any chances.”
Their chronic condition, coupled with a family friend getting sick, was the last straw for Dominguez. “OK, yeah, we’re doing it,” she said.
The school’s parking lot was no match for the swarm of people who were looking for the vaccine. Overflow parking lots at Volunteer Park also quickly filled.
A Pierce County Sheriff’s deputy and Gig Harbor High School security guard were called in to assist traffic.
The district’s next H1N1 vaccine clinic is scheduled for Nov. 18 at Peninsula High School, but it comes down to vaccine availability, Jones said.
Bouck praised the nurses, district officials and many volunteers who made the clinic the slow but successful event it was. He said the district will try to do a better job of gauging crowd size later this month.
“We tried, very carefully, to count the number of students to receive the vaccine,” Bouck said. “We were very conservative. We cut it off at 50 students under the 610 inoculations. However, because the line was outside, there were probably some people who moved into the lines that we didn’t know.”
The Peninsula School District will host one more H1N1 flu vaccination clinic from 2:30 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. Nov. 18 at Peninsula High School, 14105 Purdy Drive NW in Gig Harbor.
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