Dr. Hasan Gokal decided to give away 10 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine that were about to go to waste, in what he thought was the responsible decision. Everything that came afterwards was “an absolute, complete total shock” and “astonishingly unexpected,” he told CBS News.
The Houston physician worked as an emergency physician for the Harris County Public Health Department in Texas for the Office of Preparedness. He was also the medical director for the COVID-19 vaccine rollout for the province.
In late December last year, he oversaw a vaccination event for emergency workers – the county’s first public vaccination event, he said. Within two weeks, he would be fired and charged with theft for his actions that night.
As the event drew to a close, one last person showed up for a chance. Thus, a new vial of the Moderna vaccine was pierced with 11 doses to administer the vaccine, activating the six hour time limit for the 10 remaining doses.
The remaining 10 doses had to be in the arms within six hours, otherwise they would have to be discarded because they would have expired. Gokal said he was determined not to waste them. “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. At one time,” he said. “If you have something so precious, life-saving, it would hurt to throw it away.”
Gokal said his initial response was to offer the doses to the event employees, but they had either already been vaccinated or had declined. Emergency workers had already left the site and police officers there had already received the vaccine or said they wanted to wait to take it.
With no other options, Gokal called a Harris County public health officer responsible for the operations to share his plan to find 10 people and give them the remaining doses. He said he was told to go for it.
Because the event marked Harris County’s first time to vaccinate the public, Gokal said there was no county protocol he could have followed at the time: “They didn’t exist. This was a new scenario … Not you. have right of way here, ”he said.
Thanks to Hasan Gokal
But he said there was guidance from the Texas Department of State Health Services to always find eligible people in that category if there’s a leftover vaccine at the end of a shift. If you can’t find someone who qualifies, find someone who is willing and able to hire it. The message from the agency, Gokal said, was clear: “We don’t want any doses to be wasted. Period.”
“That’s when I start going through my phone list, thinking about who might fall under category 1 (b) (people over the age of 65 or with a health condition that increases the risk of serious Covid-related disease), said Dr. Gokal.
He rushed to find 10 people who met the state’s vaccine requirements. Some were acquaintances; others, strangers. They included two women in their 70s. Two elderly women who are bedridden. Their children in their 70s who suffered from medical conditions were also shot. A mother with a child who uses a ventilator, for whom contracting the virus could have been a “death sentence,” Gokal said.
After midnight, and just 20 minutes before the vaccine expired, the last person to receive it was canceled. Gokal said he was faced with two options: throw the last dose away or give it to his wife, who has pulmonary sarcoidosis, a lung disease that makes her short of breath and can be fatal. She was eligible given her condition, the doctor said.
Gokal said he never intended or planned to give any of his relatives an injection unless it was through the “appropriate channels” – but given the unusual circumstances, he gave the last dose to his wife.
He filed the paperwork for the 10 people he vaccinated at work the next morning and was transparent about what happened to his colleagues and supervisor the day before, he said. He was fired a week later.
Human resources told him he should have returned the remaining doses, he said, even if that meant they would have been thrown away. Gokal, who emigrated from Pakistan at the age of 10, said human resources also questioned the lack of “equality” in the list of people he vaccinated – suggesting there were too many Indian names in the group.
Harris County’s Public Health Office of Communications said the department was unable to comment on the Gokal case.
Two weeks after he was fired, the doctor found out he had been charged with theft and accused of violating county protocols by Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg.
“He abused his position to line up his friends and family for people who had gone through legal process to be there,” said Ogg. She said a week had passed “he told a fellow Harris County Public Health employee, who then reported him to executives.”
A judge later dismissed the charges. In the judge’s ruling, who said that “ the affidavit is full of carelessness and errors, ” the state did not “ comment sufficiently that the complainant had a greater right to possession of the advisor for the COVID-19 response. ”
The prosecutor still plans to take a case before a grand jury. Gokal’s lawyers expect this to happen in the next two weeks. If charged, he could face up to a year in prison.
Gokal’s attorney, Paul Doyle, said that when he asked for copies of the written protocols and waiting list referenced in the complaint, a prosecutor told him there was none, nor that there was a written waiting list.
In an email, Dane Schiller, the district attorney’s director of communications, said the office could not comment on the case, but CBS News referred to the prosecution document
Gokal said he gets tears in his eyes every time he tells the moment he found out that charges had been filed against him.
The hardest thing he had to deal with, he said, was to notice the effects of the situation on his loved ones: His wife had trouble falling asleep and her condition worsened. His children had difficulty concentrating on their schoolwork now: “It’s just been awful,” he said.
“When I’m in the ER and there’s a question mark about the right thing to do, human life always trumps any policy issue. No one ever questions that,” said Gokal, who has an emergency room background. Now he says he is dealing with the ramifications of not wasting a vaccine in the midst of a pandemic.
Gokal said he hopes his experience will not cause other doctors to lose their moral compass and be prevented from doing “the right thing” when it comes to making decisions.
“It is a shame that I was the first on the scene with situations like this and not with several down the line when they realized that this should happen every time,” he said.
Earlier this month, both the Texas Medical Association and the Harris County Medical Society released a statement supporting Gokal’s actions.
“It is difficult to understand any justification for charging a well-meaning doctor with a criminal offense in this situation,” the statement said.
Regardless of the outcome of the legal process, Gokal fears for his career.
The accusation “made Dr. Gokal look terrible worldwide,” said his attorney, and tarnished a career he’d built for two decades.
“Everyone read the first story and the first reaction was,“ These were vaccines for my parents, grandparents and frontline workers. How dare he steal it? “” Said Doyle.
For now, Gokal is spending his time volunteering at a charity health clinic.
“Since the only alternative would be to throw away the vaccines, I wouldn’t have done anything else,” Gokal said. “I wouldn’t be a good doctor if I said I was sorry.”