State leaders reach deal on injection practices

By Mary Manning

Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009 | 12:23 p.m.

Elected Nevada leaders and medical professionals announced today a plan to ensure that flu shots are available throughout the state.

Physicians have said they would no longer be able to provide flu shots or immunizations in their offices without clearing the role of medical assistants. The Medical Examiners Board had issued a statement Sept. 30 banning medical assistants from giving immunizations of any kind.

Dr. Charles Held, president of the medical board, said today that medical assistants can give shots if under the direct supervision of a licensed physician, as board policy allowed. Held rescinded the statement issued by the board on Sept. 30.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley and Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford said that as a result of discussions over the last few days between the two Democratic leaders, Gov. Jim Gibbons' office, the Medical Board of Examiners and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, an potential health care crisis had been avoided.

"These steps will ensure that patients are not denied flu shots and that children will get their needed immunizations in a safe and timely manner," Buckley and Horsford said in a joint statement.

In addition to the medical board regulations, the Legislative Health Care Committee will begin hearings at its Nov. 4 meeting on any long-term statutory changes that might be needed when the Legislature meets in 2011.

Gibbons said he was pleased that the medical board president and legislative leaders had worked out a solution to the immunization challenge as the seasonal flu season begins.

"I will continue to work with legislators to clarify any gray areas in the law to protect the health and safety of Nevada families," Gibbons said in a statement.

Nevada is expecting 28,000 doses of the H1N1 flu delivered by nasal mist this week. Clark County is scheduled to receive 20,000 of those shipments. These early doses, health officials said, will go to health care workers and emergency medical crews first, then healthy people between the ages of 2 to 49 years of age with underlying health problems.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today that the first doses of injectable H1N1 flu vaccine should be shipped to all 50 states by mid to late October.