Bartlett Regional | House Calls | Spring 2021

by Katie Bausler, Community Relations Director Low horizon sunlight illuminated the tarmac at the Juneau Airport as a cluster of reporters and a handful of hospital staff stood along a protective chain-link fence, cameras and microphones at the ready. They were waiting for the next jet to arrive with extremely precious cargo: the first box of vials of the first- approved COVID-19 vaccine. In the on-pins-and-needles group was Bartlett Director of Pharmacy Ursula Iha. “I was so excited to be there to receive the first shipment of the new vaccine,” Ursula recalls. After weeks of anticipation and plan- ning for how best to store, prepare and administer the vaccine, the moment had arrived. The plane pulled up to the Alaska Air Cargo hangar for retrieval of a cardboard cube with enough vac- cine for more than 1,000 doses on dry ice. The small group gathered round as a UPS driver gingerly loaded the box onto his truck, then they quickly dispersed to their individual vehicles for an impromptu caravan with the UPS truck to the front door of Bartlett Regional Hospital. The truck was met by an applauding group of staff, includ- ing pharmacy technician Krischelle Batac, who whisked the cube away on a wheeled cart to an ultralow freezer, housing doses for not only the hospital but the rest of Juneau. Krischelle then donned full personal protective equipment and joined a small group of colleagues in a clean room, where she mixed and drew up the capital city’s very first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Within two hours, that vaccine was injected into the arm of Infection Preventionist Charlee Gribbon, who headed up a massive staff volunteer effort to inoculate nearly 500 coworkers over the course of five days. “We had doses in arms within two hours of when it landed in Juneau,” Ursula told a national pharmacy trade magazine. Behind the scenes Well into the worldwide vaccination push to herd immunity from a deadly virus, pharmacists are getting their overdue five minutes of fame. But much of the pharmacists’ work—mixing, counting, measuring and more—takes place behind the scenes in cramped quarters on the hospital’s third floor. Likewise, community vaccine recipients at the first mass vaccination events at Centennial Hall saw volun- teers at check-in, check-out and when they got their shot. What they didn’t see was pharmacist Khalid Srour, hidden in a tent and hunched over a tiny vial of vaccine. Khalid removed the vial from a specially designed cooler, let it sit for 30 minutes, diluted the vaccine with sodium chloride, and held the vial between his thumb and forefinger as he gently inverted it 10 times. He then placed the vial back in the cooler for re- trieval by a runner to be drawn up by Precious Dec. 15, 2020: Bartlett pharmacists meet UPS delivery of the first box of the Pfizer vaccine to arrive in Juneau. As COVID-19 vaccines arrive in Juneau, pharmacists are ready for action COVID-19 4 House Calls Spring 2021