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from Ms.BettyPolitic (11/17/9)
Commissioners, How Could You?
How could
the Dallas County Commissioners Court who hire the Director of Health and Human
Service allow the HSS Director to give free H1N1 vaccine to Wal-Mart to
distribute with a fake need to expand the distribution? Dallas County
Health and Human Service has had a plan for 5 years to distribute mass vaccine
in the case of a Terrorist attack, and the plan does not include Wal-Mart.
Commissioner John Price must have forgot that the Jury found the Hill?s guilty
or his ability to operate in my opinion as an unidentified operative for
Wal-Mart gives him the necessary security that it does not matter.
I believe this the reason Zack Thompson, Director Dallas County Health and Human
Service, had to consider this stupid proposal to allow Wal-Mart to distribute
H1N1 vaccine when HSS has Clinics all over Dallas County that can give vaccine.
They do it every day. DISD has school nurses who can give shots to
students, so they do not need to miss school, which is in the distribution
manual. Most poor pregnant women go to Parkland clinics. So,
there are ways to get shots to the people who need them without them paying
$20.00 cash to Wal-Mart for what taxpayers have already paid and given to the
Health Department for free.
Let me draw a picture.
Kathy Nealy of Kathy Nealy and Associates is a very close friend and business
associate of Commissioner John Price. Many in the Community call her his
bag lady. Kathy Nealy is a paid consultant, and one of her many clients is
Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart vendor, Mollen Immunization Clinics are not
eligible to receive vaccine because for one they are "for profit" and they are
not MD provider or Health Departments. Earning her retainer, Kathy Nealy
wants to help her client take advantage of this new opportunity. She
advises Commissioner Price that if Dallas County partners with Mollen,
Mollen becomes eligible for free vaccine. Mollen uses Wal-Mart who they
already have relationship with. Although they will not only make
money from the fee, thousands of non Wal-Mart customers will come into their
stores and might establish a relationship.
Commissioner Price instructs Director Thompson to contact Mollen and make it
happen. Thompson (being an employee of the Commissioners Court) does this.
End result: Kathy Nealy delivers for her client and shares her wealth with
Price. Dallas County uses Taxpayer paid vaccine to make profit for a For
Profit business. Mollen turns around and bills Medicaid, Medicare and
private insurance for vaccine. Taxpayers pay three times, plus patient
pays $20 out of pocket. Mollen and Wal-Mart will collect almost $75
dollars for free vaccine at the expense of taxpayers. The patient
benefits from vaccine, but to see who really benefit -- follow the
money.
Nealy, just wants money
Price, wants to beat taxpayer and gets gift
Mollen and Wal-Mart are business people paying for service to make money.
They had to go all the way to Arizona to find a county doing this deal with
Mollen, but they did not check the Internet. Maricopa County held
its clinics on Saturdays, 10/24/09 & 11-02-09; and Mollen did not hold them at
Wal-Mart. Mollen signed on as a partner the last of October to do school
based H1N1 vaccine at no fee, at schools and high risk vaccine using CIGNA
clinics and Scottsdale Health care Clinics and local WIC offices for pregnant
women and very young children.
Dallas County could do the same thing since they have Mou?s with the same
government groups and not for profit groups. The Wal-Mart connection is a
Dallas game; they want to use the fact that Mollen is a Wal-Mart vendor to get
money. Nowhere in the Maricopa County web page is there a word about
Mollen being a vendor of Wal-Mart in Arizona. It is an out and out lie
about most of their H1N1 clinics are in Wal-Mart's. Wal-Mart is not on the
list of location on their web site.
The school based clinic just started Nov. 2, 2009. Maricopa has given out
17,000 doses of vaccine; they received 35,000 doses. Hell, Dallas
County only got 10,000 doses. Only in Dallas (where a deadly virus is
killing people) would an elected official still think about how to make money at
the suffering of others.
How can Dallas County be so out of control? How can people sit back and
see this mess and not call it? How much money does one person need?
When will it end?
I am a former Director of Dallas County Health and Human Service, and the mass
distribution plan was design under my tenure. I have kept up with this
crisis. I went to Maricopa County's Health Department web site because I
know Dr. Bob England, Maricopa's health director.
2 -- Mollen
Immunization Clinic operates in Arizona and was started by Dr. Art Mollen.
They give foreign travel shots and regular flu shots. The Wal-Mart/Mollen
relationship involves some seasonal flu shots that are given on special days at
Wal-Mart stores in Arizona, as well as Albertsons, Frys, Basha, Food City
grocery stores, BEALL'S, all of which are also in Dallas County.
Mollen offered regular flu shots at 50 such locations. The local Health
Department did not give Mollen any H1N1 for those 50 clinics today.
I hoped some of these lazy ass reporters would do their jobs right. To
write in The Dallas Morning News that Mollen has H1N1 flu clinics in
mostly Wal-Mart stores in Arizona is a lie, To say they have an agreement
with the local Health Department for such clinics in Wal-Mart is a lie.
I want is for the truth to be known and Taxpayers not taken advantage of by a
money hungry politician and his Side Kick. Where is Allen Clemson
when he is needed? I know in a better place with peace of mind.
Allen would have advised the other members of the Court that this deal was not
right. Director Thompson is under the thumb of John Wiley Price, poor
soul.
3 -- Mollen did
join with the local Health Department for a 1-day H1N1 vaccine flu clinic with
36 hour notice. They and the other County outlets immunized 14,000 people
of the 17,000 that have been done so far. That was great, but Wal-Mart was
not the central issue or location. Dallas County could have ask its
partners to join in a 1-day Saturday clinic and obtained the very same result.
To have a clinic on a weekday at a building that cannot even accommodate normal
back to school immunization is crazy. The building has three elevators
that cannot take or return 500 people per hour. So, how can you give them
shot?
I simply cannot sit and see the making of a money sham and not speak about it.
4 -- Thank God,
people are finally receiving H1N1 vaccine in Dallas County.
Dallas County has the highest death rate from this strain of flu of any other
County in the USA.
Dallas is now on the International alert list with two other cities.
Let me make it clear, I have never opposed to pharmacies giving vaccine. I
oppose the way it was started and why. Giving Wal-Mart exclusive rights to
the vaccine was wrong.
The fact that the Health Department did not utilize it's own clinics on a daily
basis is still a puzzle.
My main concern is the public health of Dallas County citizens. I retired
from Dallas County Health and Human Service in 2004, but I did not retire my
feeling for the welfare and health of the people.
My issues are about what politicians do on the taxpayers' dime. When it's
your own money, you will never hear from me. Since my tax are all paid up,
politicians hear from me loud and clear.
5 -
From later news reports, the Commissioners are going to allow the Health
Department to give H1N1 vaccine to a few other local for profit pharmacies to
cover for the majority of the vaccine going to Wal-Mart primarily. This is
AFTER I raised the question about Mollen Immunization Clinics from Arizona doing
only regular flu shots and the fact that they are only doing school H1N1 and a
one day clinic with the County.
Here is the problem: Pharmacies and other for profit businesses are
not currently eligible to receive vaccine. Only health departments and
doctors offices are eligible. If a health department claims they cannot
distribute their vaccine and ask a business to help them, that business becomes
an agent of the County.
What Zack Thompson is doing under the disguise of increased distribution is
allowing Wal-Mart to become its agent so Wal-Mart can sell, free vaccine and
make a profit. The first notice of this came last month when Fox 4's
Clarice Tinsley announced 'Dallas County received a shipment of H1N1 and
Wal-Mart might be the only place you can get it'. As a Former
Director of Dallas County Health, I knew that was illegal. By Six o?clock,
the lead story had changed.
It is no accident the Dallas County Health Director said he was in contact with
Mollen in Arizona, who is Wal-Mart's provider of regular flu vaccine shots, but
Mollen did not qualify for H1N1 because of its for profit status.
Kathy Nealy as a paid Wal-Mart consultant and associate of Commissioner John
Wiley Price (County Health Director?s boss) must have said make it happen.
It is so strange and sad that the public's trust in the Health Department is
being destroyed because of Nealy and Price wanting to make money. Dallas
County has enough clinics to give all its vaccine out. The State said
nothing about having insurance or not having it, they only specified high risk
people.
Zack Thompson has established another barrier for people needing vaccine.
The Health Department received 19,000 doses, why is Thompson only giving out
16,000 doses? Why is he not offering vaccine every day in county clinics
open to the public? Why create a distribution crisis when there is none?
The only answer: to help make money for Wal-Mart, Nealy and Price.
Dallas County is out of control. When elected officials sit idly by and
allow a department head to create a false emergency distribution problem that
does not exist and they know how many clinics the County has, it?s a lost cause.
Dallas County has a 5 year old plan, which was approved by the State and Federal
governments to distribute mass vaccine in case of an emergency and it does not
include Wal-Mart or private pharmacies. Why not use the plan?
International Travel Service has placed Dallas County on International Travel
Alert. Some countries are making their residents who have been in Dallas
be examined before they can return to their homes. Do you know what that
means? We could lose lots of revenue doing the holiday season when people
change their travel plans to avoid Dallas. Our HUB airport can suffer
because of it.
Think about how a selfish Official and his bag lady?s greed can cause harm to
this region if this H1N1 virus is not brought under control.
Dallas has the highest death rate in the country from H1N1, yet there are 19,000
doses of free federal government vaccine sitting in a closet on the floor at
2377 Stemmons Freeway in a building that is called Dallas County Health and
Human Service Department. Dr. Tulu is turning in his grave; he gave his
life for that place. God, how I miss him and Dr. Karin Lancaster.
They both would have stayed at the building all night and week or month until
everyone had their shots. Dr. Tulu would have also been able to isolate
where the virus was located and how each victim contracted it.
The Court has been put on notice if no action is taken, It Is What It Is.
Betty Culbreath
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