SUNRAYSIA Community Health Services has called for patience as it scales up its Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine rollout amid surging demand.
The service’s new vaccine sub-hub opened its doors on Friday at the Army Drill Hall in Mildura, delivering Pfizer vaccinations to eligible 40 to 49-year-olds.
Chief executive of Sunraysia Community Health Services (SCHS) Simone Heald said about 1600 people were already on the waiting list for the Pfizer jab.
The service aimed to vaccinate 100 people on the first day of opening, she said, and would open three days per week before scaling up to seven days over time.
“We have a good supply of vaccine at the moment, and we will get more vaccine as we require it from the main hub in Bendigo,” said Shelley Faulks, SCHS manager of clinic programs.
“The numbers (of vaccinations) will increase as we increase our workforce and our ability to spread over more days of the week,” Ms Faulks said.
To set up the centre, the service had “reallocated staff from current service delivery”, Ms Heald said, and was drawing on additional staff from other services including MDAS, Mildura Council and Mildura Base Public Hospital where possible.
Thursday’s announcement Pfizer would replace AstraZeneca as the recommended vaccine for 50 to 59-year-olds had added strain to the service, she said.
“It has had a huge impact,” she said. Phone calls to the service had “increased amazingly” on top of already heavy demand.
“We would normally average 400 phone calls into the building on a normal pre-COVID day,” she said.
“There was one day this week we took 1100 phone calls.”
“It’s a really, really busy environment to be trying to control.”
“We’ve set up a whole new service, and we’re then dealing with a huge amount of phone calls (and) community members who can’t get through.
“Please bear with us and be patient,” Ms Heald urged.
“We want the community to understand they will get vaccinated, but … we can’t vaccinate everyone at the same time.”
“It could be a few weeks before people get their appointment,” Ms Faulks said. “But we will get through everyone as quickly as we can.”
Across the SCHS service area, Ms Heald estimated there were about 48,000 people eligible for either a Pfizer or AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination.
“We will be here for around 12 months … by the time we do first and second doses,” she said.
On Thursday the Federal Government announced 1300 GP clinics nationwide would be able to administer Pfizer vaccines by the end of July.
Sunraysia Daily understands some clinics in the Mallee region have been approved to receive a shipment of the vaccine in July, and others have been approved to receive shipments in October.
The Federal Department of Health said clinics would be on progressively through July and August but did not respond to a question about how many doses they would receive.
