COVID Vaccine Thief Or Savior? Doctor Faces Criminal Charges Despite Following Protocol

Dr. Hasan Gokal finds himself facing potential criminal charges for making sure COVID-19 vaccine doses didn’t go to waste. A Houston judge initially dismissed the case against him for getting soon-to-expire doses to patients, but district attorney Kim Ogg has vowed to take the matter before a grand jury, The New York Times reports.

Gokal found himself in hot water after one of the first vaccine distribution events in December, as IBT previously reported. Vaccines come in vials of 11 doses, and only last for six hours after the vial is opened. When a straggler at the end of the night forced them to break open a new vial, Gokal was left to either find 10 patients or watch the vaccines go to waste.

Gokal says directives on distribution gave priority to frontline workers, then the elderly or chronically ill and finally whoever they could find. Driving around Houston and making house calls, Gokal managed to find seven strangers and acquaintances that were elderly, ill or both to receive the vaccine.

With the clock winding down, he arranged for three prospective recipients to meet him at his house for the final doses. But one canceled at the last minute. With only minutes to go before the last dose became useless, he gave it to his chronically ill wife.

“I didn’t intend to give this to you, but in a half-hour I’m going to have to dump this down the toilet,” he says he told her. “It’s as simple as that.”

The next morning he submitted paperwork for the doses and explanations of his reasoning. Despite reportedly having gotten the OK from health officials before his distribution, he was called in days later and promptly fired for administering vaccines outside of a scheduled event. Administrators also accused him of favoring people of Indian descent in his distribution.

The media swarmed to cover the case, and a release from the district attorney said he “stole the vial.”

“He abused his position to place his friends and family in line in front of people who had gone through the lawful process to be there,” Ogg said.

Soon after, however, the tide turned. The Texas Medical Association and the Harris County Medical Society backed up his actions, noting that his situation wasn’t unusual amid the hectic early distribution. The case was dismissed by judge Franklin Bynum, who said it was “difficult to understand any justification for charging” Gokal.

“In the number of words usually taken to describe an allegation of retail shoplifting, the state attempts, for the first time, to criminalize a doctor’s documented administration of vaccine doses during a public health emergency,” the decision read. “The court emphatically rejects this attempted imposition of the criminal law on the professional decisions of a physician.”

Still, Gokal’s worries persist. Ogg has sworn she’ll take the matter to a grand jury, and Gokal can’t return to the hospital until the case is resolved. He’s spending his days volunteering at a clinic while his family grapples with stress. He wonders, he told The New York Times, whether his life will ever move past the narrative of the doctor who stole vaccines.