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Omaha Creighton Prep will hold an H1N1 vaccination clinic Tuesday strictly for its students and staff, the first of its kind in Douglas County.
Other school clinics that have preceded Creighton Prep's — at Omaha Burke and Benson High Schools — were opened to the public the same day, in the late afternoon and evening.
A clinic for the public will be held at Creighton Prep, 7400 Western Ave., on Dec. 5, which is a Saturday.
H1N1 vaccine has arrived in Nebraska and elsewhere more slowly than expected, and public vaccination clinics generally have led to long lines. So far, health officials have asked that recipients be in high-risk groups: pregnant women, health care workers, caregivers for infants, people ages 6 months through 24 years, and people ages 25 through 64 with chronic health conditions.
The Douglas County Health Department has received about 61,500 H1N1 vaccine doses so far and about 250,000 people in the county are in the target groups, said Phil Rooney, Health Department spokesman.
Cindy Ruma, H1N1 coordinator for the Visiting Nurse Association, which is helping the Health Department schedule and run clinics offering free vaccinations, said no favoritism was being shown to Creighton Prep.
“None at all,” Ruma said.
Rooney agreed, saying the vaccination clinics will vary in the way they are offered. “They're not cookie-cutter situations,” Rooney said. “There's no conspiracy.”
Joe Ryberg, Creighton Prep's dean of students, said only staffers who fit high-risk criteria would be vaccinated. Students automatically fit the age criterion. Ryberg said Ruma called him Wednesday offering vaccine for a Creighton Prep student-staff clinic next Tuesday. He said yes.
Rooney said before Prep received the offer, another school was offered the opportunity to have a clinic Tuesday. “They weren't able to do it,” Rooney said.
Ruma said the Health Department and Visiting Nurse Association wanted to hold Saturday clinics and it worked out well to vaccinate students at Prep on Tuesday and hold the public portion on a Saturday early next month.
Ruma said Barbara Schweiger of the Archdiocese of Omaha's Catholic schools office preferred to have public clinics on Saturdays at some of its sites. Skutt Catholic, for instance, will have a Saturday clinic that hasn't been scheduled yet. Skutt won't have a strictly student-staff clinic, Ruma said.
Schweiger didn't return phone calls Thursday afternoon.
Prep's Ryberg said that in an early October meeting with Ruma, he and other Prep officials offered Oct. 24 and Dec. 5 as possible dates for a public Saturday clinic. As it turned out, he said, there was no vaccine available for an Oct. 24 clinic.
He said he wasn't certain if Schweiger had spoken with Ruma before the early October meeting.
“Obviously I don't believe there was any preferential treatment,” Ryberg said. “We're just happy to help.”
Prep is an all-male school with more than 1,000 students.
Ruma said she expects that every high school in the county with 1,000 or more students eventually will have a clinic. She and Dr. Adi Pour, director of the County Health Department, said the clinics will vary in how they serve students and the public.
Ruma said she is working with schools to set up clinics that fit their schedules and desires. Omaha South High School, for instance, also wants separate public and student clinics. Those still are being scheduled.
Rooney said his agency wants to reach as many people as it can as quickly as possible and in various spots throughout the county.
The Health Department on Thursday announced additional clinics at Bennington High School, 16610 Bennington Road, next Wednesday and Millard North High School, 1010 S. 144th St., on Nov. 23. Both will be held from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Ruma said health officials are serving every sector of the county with clinics and doing the best they can to get vaccine out quickly. She said some have criticized them for holding their first two clinics at Burke and Benson.
“I don't care where we have them as long as we can get these (vaccinations) out,” she said. “People in Millard are complaining that we didn't get to Millard first.”
Contact the writer:
444-1123, rick.ruggles@owh.com
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