HONOLULU -- KITV has learned the state health department has gone undercover to determine if pharmacies and doctors are giving the H1N1 vaccine to people with the highest risk of contracting swine flu.

The investigators have found some health care providers are offering vaccines to people with very low risk.

H1N1 vaccines are in very short supply across the country and in Hawaii, so the state health department has been checking to make sure they're going to those who need them most.

"It was prompted basically because we were getting so many calls from providers and public out there concerned because they thought this pharmacy was breaking the rules or that provider was breaking the rules," state epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park said.

Park said disease investigators from the health department have called every pharmacy in the state and some other health providers, posing as people with a low risk of getting swine flu.

"[They were] pretending they were someone, Joe Public out there, and for the most part, they were either refused if they were inappropriate or they would be told, 'You know, we don't have it but you can go to this store,' things like that," Park said.

She said the vast majority of agencies they called followed the recommended guidelines and turned away people unless they were pregnant women, children, and people with underlying health problems or others more susceptible to getting the H1N1 flu.

The health department cannot fine wrongdoers in this case or punish them criminally but Park said, "There have been a couple that we have sunk to the bottom."

Park said the state has put a few agencies not following the rules at the bottom of the list of 567 health care providers waiting for more swine flu vaccine.

"If we were to find providers out there flagrantly practicing obviously against what we had advised and not following the priority groups, they basically would go off our list," Park said.

That hasn't happened yet, but she said they will suspend vaccine shipments to any agency that keeps violating the rules. After all, she said it's not fair for patients in need of the vaccine to have to wait longer because someone who doesn't really need it got their dose first.