‘DEAR MAJOR DONORS’

Washington State Hospital Says Sorry After It Was Caught Offering Vaccine Appointments to Donors

The email reportedly provided around 100 major donors with a priority access code to register for vaccine appointments “by invite” only.

A Washington state hospital has apologized after it was caught offering special access to the coronavirus vaccine for its donors. In an email invitation obtained by the Seattle Times, Overlake Medical Center wrote: “Dear Overlake major donors… We’re pleased to share that we have 500 new open appointments in the Overlake COVID-19 vaccine clinic.” The email reportedly provided the donors with a priority access code to register for appointments “by invite” only. Following the report, the hospital admitted that it had got it badly wrong. In a statement, it said that around 4,000 email invitations were sent and the list included around 100 donors. “We recognize we made a mistake by including a subset of our donors and by not adopting a broader outreach strategy to fill these appointments, and we apologize,” wrote hospital president J. Michael Marsh.