Senators Squabble With Kansas Health Secretary Over Priority List

By Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector

March 15, 2021

TOPEKA — Members of a Senate health panel on Monday questioned the wisdom of withholding COVID-19 vaccines from cancer patients and others in fragile health while inoculating young, healthy essential workers.

The Republicans clashed with Kansas Department of Health and Environment secretary Lee Norman and his agency’s decision to block counties from moving into the third phase of the vaccine rollout before other counties finish phase two. Norman said his agency was sticking to the terms of a contract signed with the federal government in December that outlines the priority schedule for who gets the vaccine.

The first phase was limited to health care workers and nursing home residents. The second phase, which began in January, gave priority to individuals over the age of 65 and covered prisons, child care centers and other congregate settings. Essential workers, including state lawmakers and school teachers, also are in the second phase.

Sen. Richard Hilderbrand, a Galena Republican who chairs the Public Health and Welfare Committee, proposed legislation that would allow county health departments to break from KDHE guidance and make their own decisions about who is eligible for the vaccine. He said it wasn’t right that the 40% of the state population covered in the first two phases don’t include the 18,000 Kansans who are being treated for cancer.

“They see that individual every day and their heart is breaking because they got to tell that person, ‘I’m sorry that our state says you’re not worthy of this vaccination until we give it to half the population.’ For me that is wrong.”

Sen. Beverly Gossage, R-Eudora, said her sister-in-law who has lung cancer was unable to get the vaccine before a younger neighbor.

“She has only one lung, and she’s in phase three, is petrified to leave her home knowing that this would be a death sentence to her,” Gossage said.

Norman said the state followed recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that give consideration to two factors: Who is most at risk from dying from COVID-19, and who is most likely to spread the virus?

“You treat an individual or you treat a community. Collectivism versus individuality,” Norman said. “And it tears at my heartstrings, too. I’m a cancer survivor myself, and I surely understand what that’s like. And all I can say is it’s coming very soon.”

Gossage wondered why the state is “trying to stop the spread when the illness is 99.8% survivable.”

As of Monday, 4,835 Kansans have died from COVID-19 and at least 298,000 have tested positive.

‘May I respond?’

Counties that have finished the second phase had vaccines reallocated as other parts of the state work to catch up.

Essential workers granted access to the vaccine in phase two include employees for schools and universities, telecommunications, information technology systems, defense, food and agriculture, transportation and logistics, energy, water and wastewater, and law enforcement.

Norman said his agency recently intervened and cut off supply when Riley County began to move into the third phase without KDHE approval.

Hilderbrand and Norman exchanged remarks over the agency’s oversight of vaccine distribution and CDC rankings, based on incomplete data, of the percentage of vaccine doses that remain in inventory.

Hilderbrand: “That should never even be thought of as an enforcement mechanism, especially when we’re dead last to bottom five in vaccine distribution.”

Norman: “May I respond to your comment? Because you’re just not accurate.”

Hilderbrand: “Secretary Norman, no, you may not. You may respond to another question, but mine was just a comment, not a question.”

Sen. Pat Pettey, D-Kansas City, presented a question to Norman: Could he respond to the inaccurate information?

Norman said the CDC figures are wrong in part because of problems with the software the Legislature mandates for health officials in Kansas. The state currently ranks 38th, and would be in the top 20, Norman said, if they could get through half the backlog of doses already administered.

‘A political decision’

In testimony over Senate Bill 295, the legislation that would give counties authority to make their own priority list, Sedgwick County Commissioner Jim Howell said the state made a mistake when it formed the priority plan for vaccines and “needs to pivot.”

“I think everybody with common sense would understand someone with stage four cancer has a higher risk of COVID-19 than someone in their 20s and 30s that are otherwise very healthy,” Howell said.

Howell said he doesn’t question the state’s decision to block counties from progressing to the third phase when counties like his are still in phase two. But he wants the state to redefine the second phase to include people in “fragile health.”

“They deserve the right to not have a death panel essentially make a political decision to put someone in the back of the back of the line,” Howell said.

Under questioning from Pettey, however, Howell acknowledged there are still people over the age of 65 in his county who are still waiting for a shot. He also said healthy young adults were finding “creative ways” to get vaccinated.

Sen. Mark Steffen tells members of the Senate health panel on Monday that the state health secretary has the power to fire county health officers. The agency’s general counsel disputes Steffen’s assertion. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Powers that be

Kansas law gives the state health secretary the power to make decisions to protect the public. That includes ordering individuals to quarantine if they have to avoid spreading a deadly disease.

The secretary can override county-level health officials, but apparently can’t fire them, contrary to remarks made during Monday’s hearing by Sen. Mark Steffen, R-Hutchinson.

“I do think everybody here should know that in the Kansas statutes, Chapter 65, the Secretary of Health and Environment has the right to fire the county health director,” Steffen said. “I think that’s an important thing to understand, that they have that kind of reach down to the county level.”

KDHE general counsel Brian Vazquez corrected Steffen in an email to agency leadership. He said the secretary cannot fire a county health officer. The law referenced by Steffen puts county commissions in charge of hiring and firing health officers.