Texas doctor Hasan Gokal, who was fired and charged with stealing doses of coronavirus vaccines, defended his decision, saying he would not let the vaccine doses expire and be lost.
“This is a province of 5 million people and we had the first 3,000,000 doses. There was no room to throw any of it away. Ever,” Gokal, formerly a doctor at Texas’ Harris County Public Health Department and medical director for vaccine rollout in the county, said in one interview with CBS News.
“If you have something so precious, life-saving, it would hurt to throw it away,” he added.
The incident took place on December 29 and Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg shortly afterward charged him with stealing 10 doses from a vaccination site. The charge could lead to a $ 4,000 fine and one year in prison.
Gokal told CBS News that 10 more doses were left at a vaccination site at the end of the night and he had to administer them within six hours or they would expire.
Gokal wanted to use the last 10 doses and contacted all staff and police who were at the vaccination event, but they either already had the vaccine or refused it. He says he contacted a Harris County public health officer to see if he could find 10 people to administer it and the officer agreed.
“That’s when I start going through my phone book, thinking about who” is eligible for the vaccine, “Gokal told CBS News.
He found nine people who were older or had health problems that put them at higher risk of dying from the virus. In the last minutes before the vaccine expired, he vaccinated his wife because he couldn’t find anyone else and there was only one dose left.
His wife has pulmonary sarcoidosis, a lung disease that he says qualified her for the vaccine.
“He abused his position to line his friends and family for people who had gone through legal process to be there,” Ogg said in a statement. “What he did was illegal and he will be held responsible under the law.”
A judge dismissed the charges, but Ogg is still taking the case to a grand jury.