Mackenzie Health apologizes after 6 people were injected with saline instead of vaccine

Mackenzie Health is apologizing after health officials inadvertently treated six people with saline injections instead of a COVID-19 vaccination in late March.

In a statement, Mackenzie Health said the incident happened on March 28th at its vaccine clinic at the Cortelluci Vaughan Hospital, adding that while the injection does not cause any harm, “this should not have happened.”

“… Saline is used to dilute the COVID-19 vaccine prior to administration,” said Mackenzie Health on Monday.

“… Our internal quality assurance processes allowed us to identify this issue in a timely manner and contact the impacted individuals to disclose the issue, offer support, and have them tested for antibodies to identify those who needed to be re-injected with vaccine.”

A message from Mackenzie Health: pic.twitter.com/egmD3QS3BW

— Mackenzie Health (@MackenzieHealth) April 19, 2021

They apologized for the error and “for the uncertainty and concern this situation has caused.”

“We have undertaken a full review of our processes and have implemented additional safeguards to prevent this from happening again.”

Mackenzie Health is part of York Region’s public health unit.

This isn’t the first instance of a health official accidentally administering someone saline instead of a vaccine.

A Walgreens store in North Carolina mistakenly gave people shots of saline, the company said Monday.

Walgreens said it’s investigating and have “taken immediate steps to review our procedures with the location to prevent this from occurring again.”

According to its website, a limited number of appointments for York Region residents 65 years of age and older are available at the Mackenzie Health COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic.

To align with the province’s vaccine direction, all previous second dose appointments have been rescheduled to abide by the new timeline of interval doses.

York Region announced on Monday that the public health unit is expanding COVID-19 vaccines to all York Region residents 60 years of age or older and those 35 years of age and older in five high-priority areas.

Multiple GTA clinics were forced to close in recent weeks due to supply issues.