AUSTIN – One of the top executives at Loretto Hospital resigned on Wednesday evening after the Block Club revealed people from three companies he had close ties to were vaccinated early with doses from West Hospital Side.
Loretto Hospital’s board of directors accepted the resignation of chief operating officer Dr Anosh Ahmed unanimously on Wednesday, according to a press release. Ahmed’s resignation came just hours after the Block Club news broke unsuitable people working in a steakhouse frequented by Ahmed they were vaccinated early.
The board thanked Ahmed for his work, but said he “will continue to investigate any deviations from the rules and regulations” for vaccinations. Ahmed was hired in 2018.
“If our review reveals anything more that indicates that our processes have been compromised, further consequences will be imposed on those responsible for those actions,” Prime Minister Edward Hogan said in a statement.
Ahmed, who was also the hospital’s financial director, came under heavy criticism after the Block Club report last week Loretto hosted a vaccination event at Trump Tower and Ahmed told people vaccinated millionaire Eric Trump.
Ahmed – who later said he was joking about Trump’s vaccination – owns a building in Trump Tower and has told people he is friends with Trump, who would not be eligible for a vaccine in Chicago.
Seal of Geneva, a luxury jewelry and watch shop on the Gold Coast frequented by Ahmed, he was also vaccinated by Loretto in early March; as well as the employees of an expensive Gold Coast steakhouse, Maple & Ash, of which Ahmed is a regular customer.
The scandals spread to other parts of the hospital: more than 200 people from CEO George Miller’s suburban church were vaccinated of Loretto, reports the Block Club. Even the unfit Cook County judges were offered shots at Loretto, Reported by WBEZ.
Loretto Hospital has stopped providing doses of coronavirus vaccine of the city as officials investigate whether it is about properly vaccinating people and reporting vaccinations.
Dr Allison Arwady, head of the city’s health department, said Loretto was using his doses on “well-connected” people, “letting them skip the line.” The health department is investigating and will not send doses to Loretto until it is certain that they are used according to city rules.
The hospital board said on Friday it had taken “appropriate reprimand action against Miller and Ahmed for their role in the errors in judgment” – but council members refused to disclose these punishments.
On Monday, the council held an emergency meeting and said it had created a corrective action plan, but members again refused to say what they intended to do or how Miller and Ahmed had scolded.
Congressman LaShawn Ford, a council member and the region’s representative to the state legislature, resigned Tuesday morning, saying that the board needs to be more transparent.
Loretto Hospital is a small, 122-bed hospital operating on the underserved West Side, where people of color have been hit hard by the coronavirus and few have been vaccinated. Trump Tower, Geneva Seal and Maple & Ash are located in the city center, where the impact of the virus has not been felt so much, but where more vaccinations have been carried out.
The city highlighted Loretto’s work as an example of his goal of equitably immunizing people – while insisting on having it. the first doses of the city’s vaccine administered there to show how Chicago would prioritize the West and South side communities that are often overlooked.
But the hospital is now embroiled in controversy.
A member of staff at Loretto Hospital – who asked to remain anonymous because he fears retaliation – said the controversy is “infuriating” because “people are calling every day, queuing up to get vaccinated ”On the West Side.
The staff member said many of their colleagues at Loretto were “frustrated” and wondered how anyone in the hospital could be held accountable. The board should have fired Miller and Ahmed, the staff member said on Monday.
“We have lost confidence in the management of Loretto Hospital. We have lost confidence in the board, ”said the staff member.” He seems very, very corrupt, and it seems their personal interests are much more important to them than serving the West Side of Chicago, which many of us are passionate about and many of us are hospitalized for for this reason. “
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