Searching for H1N1 vaccine in Salt Lake County can feel like a full-time job.

Don Blasongame of West Jordan recently was on the hunt, wanting to protect his 6-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter. He tried to make appointments using the Salt Lake Valley Health Department's Web site and phone line and even showed up in person. He called pharmacies, but his children were too young. He considered driving to Tooele and Orem, where supplies seemed more plentiful. And he called his pediatrician and family doctor. All without luck.

"We were doing everything we could possibly do to get them protected," he said Tuesday, relaxed now that his children finally got their doses at the health department. "It was pretty frustrating there for two or three weeks."

Demand for the vaccine seems to have dropped as the flu season appears to have peaked, but that doesn't mean getting the vaccine will be any easier. The state today will discuss letting all-comers have the vaccine rather than just high-risk groups, potentially increasing competition for limited dosages.

In Salt Lake County, the Salt Lake Valley Health Department keeps about 40 percent of the vaccine supply it receives from the federal government, doling it out at mass vaccination clinics to eligible residents who schedule appointments. But the other 60 percent is in the hands of private providers who aren't publicly named, don't know when they will receive vaccine nor how much they will get, and make their own distribution rules with little government oversight. Few announce they have doses on the state's flu-finder Web site.

The health department justifies not publicly releasing the names of the doctors who have the vaccine by saying the doctors would be inundated with calls and stop administering the vaccine.

Health department spokeswoman Pam Davenport said the providers are expected to give it to their patients -- not the general public. She said the health department needs the providers' help to reach all the people who should be vaccinated. The county expects to eventually get 500,000 doses and the health department can't do it all.

"Publishing it would definitely put the entire program at risk," she said. "People [would] sit down with the phone book and start calling. There's no logical way for them to open their doors and vaccinate the public."

Jennifer Negrete, office manager at Draper's Willow Creek Pediatrics, agrees. "We're having a hard time managing our patients as it is," she said. The four federally funded community health centers in Salt Lake County also keep their doses for established patients. Dexter Pearce, the centers' director, said he doesn't get enough vaccine to cover his patients, let alone others. He noted that 30 percent of the centers' pregnant patients have been vaccinated. And just 2 percent of children younger than 9 have received a second dose.

Providers sign a form saying they will follow CDC guidelines in distributing the vaccine. The priority group includes pregnant women, children 6 months to age 24, health care workers and adults up to age 64 who have certain underlying health conditions.

Pediatrician Bill Cosgrove is more restrictive, limiting the doses to children with conditions such as asthma and diabetes.

"What we've done as an office is try to make sure the kids at the highest risk get the doses first," he said.

"Nobody's getting angry. People are getting a little frustrated with the delays."

But pediatrician Keith Ramsey, owner of the Jordan Ridge Kids and Teens clinic in West Jordan, has had enough vaccine to start giving it to the public.

That violates his agreement with the state and Salt Lake County, according to public health officials, though he says it is up to him to decide how to distribute it.

"With the epidemic slowing down a bit, it's reasonable to open it up to other people," Ramsey said.

Private providers must log how many doses they distribute and to which age groups. There is no other oversight except on a complaint basis.

"What we don't want to become is the vaccine police," state health department spokesman Tom Hudachko said.

Ramsey's clinic is one of the few that acknowledges it has doses on the state's Flu Vaccine Locator site.

Patients of other clinics are left to calling and checking their doctors' Web sites daily, because clinic staff don't know when they will get vaccine nor how much.

Clinic staff can be just as frustrated as patients.

The limited supply and obscure distribution system is "horrible," said John O'Donnell, chief operating officer of Granger Medical Clinic, which has received H1N1 doses. "If this was really a national emergency, we'd be up the creek."

hmay@sltrib.com