Scroggins expresses frustration, disappointment with vaccine availability from ADPH

During the Feb. 8 Shelby County Commission meeting, County Manager Chad Scroggins spent 25 minutes voicing his frustration over the lack of vaccinations that Shelby County has received.

He informed the commission of what’s been going on and what he has been told by the ADPH.

“The commission is getting calls from county residents, especially those 65 and older, that are frustrated about the vaccine rollouts,” he said. 

Scroggins said that Jefferson County has its own health department so they got their allocations straight to them, along with several hospitals that can take the Pfizer vaccine. 

“We are getting penalized because Grandview [Medical Center] is a stone's throw away from us,” he said. “The ADPH uses that in distributing vaccines throughout the state.” 

When the ADPH recently rolled out their 855 phone number, not only did they only have 100 call takers to take a million calls, they also directed people to a vaccination clinic that did not exist. 

“We started having seniors show up at our exhibition center [in Columbiana] for appointments that did not exist,” Scroggins said. “They got the call notifying them to come to the exhibition center for their vaccination, but there was no vaccine clinic.”

Only one vaccination clinic has taken place in the county thus far. On Jan. 22, 511 people were vaccinated at the Pelham Civic Complex and Scroggins said that clinic went off extremely smoothly. 

“If we had more vaccines, we could have done more,” he said. 

That same day, another clinic was scheduled to take place in Columbiana, but was later canceled by the ADPH.

Jamey Durham, the Department of Public Health's statewide coordinator, promised the EMA office the county would get a boost of 2,000 doses per week for 8 weeks. That's 16,000 vaccinations (only 8,000 for the 225,000 population), but that quickly got pulled.

Scroggins said the county was told to get educator numbers to help vaccinate educators and support staff at schools on a Friday afternoon, but by the following Monday, that was pulled.

“We build up our hopes and they get dashed,” he said. “That prompted a letter I wrote to the superintendents and copied [the commission] and every one of our legislatures and a lot of the ADPH staff, bringing this to the attention of Dr. Harris.”

Scroggins said Rep. Corley Ellis has really taken up this fight for the county in Montgomery and he appreciates his efforts. He said the allocation should follow the population. Shelby County is the largest most populous county in the ADPH area and is getting significantly less vaccinations than other counties.

“The ADPH will patronize us and say they know how we feel about this and I remind them they don't know how we feel about this. They don't understand my frustration and don’t understand what’s going on here in our county,” Scroggins said. “4% of the population of the state of Alabama lives in Shelby County, and we’ve got significantly less than 4.4% of the vaccinations that have come into this state.”

In a conference call with the ADPH last Friday, Scroggins said they cut the call short due to a press conference and they were basically “brushed off.” He said he will continue to bring this issue up to ADPH and the governor's office. 

“We will not stop with this,” he said. “We will continue to put the pressure on. Right now I may be one of the most unliked people in Montgomery because of the attention we are bringing to this.”

Scroggins told the commission that the two people to contact at the ADPH are Carolyn Bern, Community Affairs Director (carolyn.bern@adph.state.al.us) and Jamey Durham (jamey.durham@adph.state.al.us),” Scroggins said. “Both of them were on the call last Friday, both of which provided responses not adequate to what our expectations are.” 

Shelby County should get 2,000 additional doses over the next couple of weeks, but Scroggins said significantly more than that is needed. He also hopes that UAB will help Shelby County as they have done in Jefferson County with the vaccination clinic at the Hoover Met. 

“If you know somebody who needs the dose now that’s in the age bracket, encourage them to get on UAB website and sign up at the Hoover Met,” Scroggins said. “We are trying to help all our residents, but at the end of the day, the ADPH has not treated us fair on this. They’ll say they have, but they have not.”

Chief Operating Officer Phil Burns encourages citizens to visit the COVID site on the county’s webpage at shelbyal.com/987/COVID-19-Information. It lists places for online vaccine scheduling and will be updated as more places make the vaccine available. 

Scroggins said when the vaccinations are available, they will utilize the Pelham Civic Complex, the exhibition center in Columbiana and then add more in the other parts of the county when possible. 

“The more people we vaccinate, the more we can help our population get back to some sense of normalcy,” Scroggins said. 

At the end of the meeting, a resolution was read honoring Reggie Holloway, who recently retired from his position as manager of community affairs for the county after 22 years of service. 

Scroggins said there is no better picture of a public servant than Holloway. 

The next commission meeting will be held on Feb. 22 at 6 p.m. at the Shelby County Administration Building in Columbiana.