The Iowa Department of Corrections revealed Monday that two nurses were fired for allegedly administering overdoses of the Covid-19 vaccine to 77 inmates in April, Des Moines Registerreports.
Department spokesperson Cord Overton told the outlet that, on April 20, the unidentified nurses gave the victims six times the approved dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Overton said those who were inoculated experienced typical side effects, but none of them required hospitalization. “The inmates that received doses in excess of what is recommended have been monitored, and all are in good health based on our medical staff’s assessments,” Overton said. “Facility medical services continue to be available to them if their health status should change.”
The nurses were placed on administrative leave in April as the department launched an investigation. Overton stated earlier this month that their findings wouldn’t be disclosed to the public.
The Des Moines Register reports the overdoses occurred after the prison switched from the Moderna vaccine to Pfizer. While the former comes premixed, the latter comes in a concentrated form and needs to be diluted with a saline solution. Overton maintained at the time that the nurses were given “clear instructions” on how to administer the vaccine. “Our investigation confirmed that clear instructions were provided for those charged with administering the vaccine, and that the administration was done in teams of fully licensed registered nurses in order to prevent this exact type of event from occurring,” he said.
The prison’s employee union argued that the nurses weren’t trained properly and were notified of the change just 90 minutes beforehand. “When they switched from Moderna to Pfizer, they were notified approximately 90 minutes before they were to start administering vaccines,” union spokesman Troy Price said. “(The Department of Corrections) should have notified the nurses earlier, and ensured they understood what the switch between the two vaccines meant in terms of vaccine delivery.”
