NJ Sloan Kettering Cancer Patients Can More Easily Get Vaccine

HOLMDEL, NJ — Starting this week, the Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey is now providing the coronavirus vaccine to any New Jersey resident receiving cancer care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, or at its three satellite campuses in New Jersey.

The news was announced by the Visiting Nurse Association (VNA) and Sloan Kettering in a joint statement.

This is a solution to a problem that has vexed many in New Jersey, who are either currently receiving cancer treatment from Sloan Kettering, or had received treatment in the past from the world-renowned hospital. These are high-risk, immuno-compromised patients, but found they were unable to get the coronavirus vaccine directly from Sloan Kettering. Instead, they had to join the virtual line with millions of other New Jersey residents.

That is because Sloan Kettering was not given any vaccine from the New Jersey Department of Health, due to initial limited supply.

"Memorial Sloan Kettering is one of many worthy organizations (specialty hospitals, senior housing centers, physician offices etc.) that are in line to become a point of dispensing when our vaccine supply increases," NJ Dept. of Health spokeswoman Nancy Kearney told Patch Thursday.

Sloan Kettering is a New York hospital headquartered in Manhattan, although it operates New Jersey satellite campuses in Basking Ridge, Middletown and Montvale.

Cancer hospitals headquartered in New Jersey, such as Robert Wood Johnson, were given vaccine allotments from the state.

Several New Jersey lawmakers said they started getting complaints about this, including Monmouth County state Senator Declan O'Scanlon, who said a number of residents called him.

"We got numerous calls. It was a problem," O'Scanlon told Patch.

It was O'Scanlon who asked the Visiting Nurse Association if they could step in and help.

"Great things happen when good people work together to solve a problem," he said.

Christopher Rinn, CEO of VNA CJ Community Health Center, said yes right away, and described it as "an honor" to work with Memorial Sloan Kettering.

After all, the VNA, which started out as a traveling clinic for the poor, has already been vaccinating teachers from the ground floor of Bell Works in Holmdel, and has been giving the vaccine to low-income residents out of churches in Asbury Park and Neptune.

And now they can add cancer patients to their list. VNA nurses started giving out the first round of shots to MSK patients this week. If you are a registered patient with MSK — anywhere in the state of New Jersey — all you have to do is ask your Sloan Kettering doctor how to sign up.

"The VNA program is for any Memorial Sloan Kettering registered patient who lives in New Jersey," said Courtney Nowak, a spokeswoman for Sloan Kettering. "Patients who are interested in the program can call their MSK physician’s office for registration information."

You will have to travel: All the vaccinations are being done out of VNA's various clinics in Monmouth County, and the non-profit cautions they have a limited vaccine supply, for now.

Toms River mom, 35, now able to be vaccinated

Jackie (last name withheld for medical privacy) is one of those patients. She just got her first dose of Moderna Wednesday, at the VNA's vaccine tent at Bell Works.

Ten years ago, it was Sloan Kettering doctors who saved her life, recalled this Toms River mom, now 35. She was diagnosed with leukemia at age 20 and received her first round of cancer treatment locally here in New Jersey. When she was 25, the leukemia came back.

"When they told me it came back, it was bad," she recalled. "That was when they sent me to Sloan Kettering in New York and I got a stem cell transplant. I owe Sloan Kettering with my life, I really do."

But still, she was "surprised — very surprised" when her Sloan Kettering doctors told her this spring they could not provide her with the coronavirus vaccine.

"Sloan has provided me with everything I need. For example, when I got the stem cell transplant, I had to have all my childhood vaccines all over again — MMR, everything. Your immune system has to start all over. I even get my flu shot every year from Sloan Kettering," she said. "So when they told me they weren't able to offer the COVID vaccine, yeah, I was taken aback. I wouldn't say I was angry; I was just shocked, really."

Jackie usually goes to her Sloan Kettering doctor in New York, but she sometimes uses their Middletown campus for routine blood work and other visits. She asked her NY doctor if she could come to the Sloan Kettering main campus in Manhattan, and get the vaccine there.

The answer revealed a logistical wrinkle when it comes to doling out a coveted vaccine across state lines.

"They told me no, because I am a New Jersey resident and only New York residents can get the vaccine in New York," she said.

From there, she started to scramble.

"I asked my sister-in-law, who's a nurse, if she could help. She was trying to get me into her hospital, but they only have J&J ..." she trailed off.

Then, two days ago, Jackie said she was informed by Sloan Kettering that she can now get the coronavirus vaccine through the VNA.

"They said we have this new program; do you want to do it?" she said. "I got an email link from Sloan Kettering Monday night, signed up online and within 24 hours, I got a text from VNA saying I had an appointment scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at Bell Works."

Wearing her mask, sitting on the ground floor of Bell Works as she waited her customary fifteen minutes, Jackie said she was "grateful" to both Sloan Kettering and VNA.

"I have been very cautious," she told Patch. "Because of everything I've been through, I really haven't left my house during COVID."

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