With the expansion of the COVID-19 vaccination programme to cover all persons 18 years and older, the Ministry of Health is conducting vaccination outreaches over the weekend at health centres and pop-up sites across regions Two, Four, Seven, Eight and Nine.
A list of the sites where eligible persons can get their COVID-19 jab was posted on the Ministry’s Facebook page in wake of the extension of the programme from last Friday.
In Region Two, persons who want to get vaccinated can go to the Suddie Market, the Johanna Cecilia Secondary School and the Fisher Primary School today between 8.30 am and 3.30 pm.
In Region Four, persons can go to the Mocha Road Head and the Central Demerara Lions Club at Providence today between 8 am and 5.30 pm.
On Saturday, persons in Region Two were able to get there shots at the Queens-town Community Centre, the Taymouth Manor Primary School and the Karawab Health Post.
In Region Seven, vaccines were distributed at Kaikan Health Post, the Que-banang Health Post, the Jawalla Health Post, Waramadong Health Post and the Paruima Health Post.
Region Eight had vaccination sites at the Mahdia Hospital and the Kopinang Health Post.
In Region Four, persons turned up at the Enterprise Health Centre, Melanie Health Centre, Lusignan Health Centre, Beterver-wagting Health Centre, Eccles Health Centre, Grove Health Centre and Soes-dyke Health Centre to receive their jabs yesterday.
During this newspaper’s visit to some of the centres in Region Four, youths and middle-aged persons were seen sitting under sheds waiting for their jabs while others were being screened. Some 143 persons had received vaccines at the Lusignan Health Centre when this newspaper visited the facility yesterday afternoon. A midwife who was assisting with the inoculation process, Vanessa John-Louis, told Sunday Stabroek that the Centre was previously sharing the AstraZeneca and Sinopharm vaccines but now they are distributing the Russian Sputnik V vaccines. She said that persons have been showing up for their shots and that the Ministry of Health has also done its part to reach persons. John-Louis said that on Friday the LHC re-located to the S&S Supermarket so the market crowd would be targeted. The mid-wife, who said she had received her shot, said that persons who are of the required age should take the vaccine.
Stabroek News also visited the Beterverwagting Health Centre and was told by a nurse that about 75 persons had shown up and received their jab of the Sputnik V vaccine by the time of the visit. The nurse said that the Centre has been catering to persons who are 60 years and older but with most of them having received their first dose the number of patients have started to dwindle. She also said that with more patients going to centres in their catchment area, the Centre hasn’t seen been visited by persons who can go to places closer to their homes.
Meanwhile, at the Eccles Health Centre, Vidya Katar, one of the two nurses vaccinating persons, said that the inoculation process was going great. “So far we’re going great. We’ve had over 60 persons already for the day and there’s still more persons here, which might take us to probably 100 for the day. We’ve had persons from all over come but we don’t send them away because it’s not our catchment area. We still look after everybody,” Katar said. “We’ve had more persons because when we had 40 and older we usually had 60 or 50 persons. 34 was the lowest. So it has been a great increase,” she said when asked how the changes to the eligibility criteria for inoculation had affected the Centre. Katar added that the increase in patients also meant that the understaffed centre was very busy with work. She said that two soldiers were assisting with screening persons while the nurses do the vaccine administration. (Lazeena Yearwood)
