For more than a week, occupational nurse Janet Li-Tall has been giving the H1N1 flu vaccine to a short list of fellow healthcare workers at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. But she cannot get the coveted vaccine for herself.

"I just have to wait with everyone else," said Li-Tall, 28.

She is among tens of thousands of local healthcare workers who find themselves in the same position as the general public: scrambling to get vaccinated.

Federal officials -- who list healthcare workers among those at greatest risk for H1N1 flu -- had promised California 6.2 million doses by now. But the state has received just 2.7 million doses due to manufacturing shortages, said Mike Sicilia, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Health. It is the same story nationwide, where only about 27 million of an expected 40 million doses are available.

Among the five highest-priority groups, Sicilia said California ranks healthcare workers third, after pregnant women and caregivers of children under 6 months old. But officials here, unlike some in Ohio, New York and Wisconsin, have not set aside vaccines for healthcare workers.

With so few doses in hand, doctors and nurses say they have been forced to wait in line or volunteer at public clinics to get vaccinated.