Vaccine centres on cards

DOCTORS WERE ALSO WARNED IN THE BRIEFING THEY WOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO PRIORITISE THEIR OWN PATIENTS FOR COVID JABS WHEN THE ROLLOUT STARTED

MASS COVID vaccination sites are likely to be set up by state governments in big cities and large regional areas when there are enough stocks of COVID-19 vaccine available.

GPs were told about the large-scale sites, similar to the ones successfully run by Israel, which has vaccinated more than 75 per cent of its population, during a briefing from the federal health department on Thursday morning.

“I think we will see that states will set up in the larger metro areas and some of the bigger metro, some of the bigger regional areas, some reasonably large-scale clinics that we’ll be able to deliver some of those efficiencies,” said Dr Allison Jones, acting assistant secretary of the health department’s COVID-19 vaccine taskforce.

Doctors were also warned in the briefing they would not be allowed to prioritise their own patients for COVID jabs when the rollout started but would have to deliver them to any eligible patient who sought an appointment.

Dr Lucas de Toca, acting first assistant secretary of the health department’s primary care response to COVID-19, told GPs: “You cannot limit your vaccine offer to your own patients, especially in the earliest stages of the rollout when there’s going to be a limited number of practices that are offering high throughput vaccine access.”

Initially only a “handful” of GP practices will be picked to deliver the vaccine because there will not be enough stock to allow every clinic to take part in the program, departmental officials said.

More than 5400 GP clinics have applied to take part in the vaccine rollout but just two weeks before community injections start the department is still checking the applications to decide which will get the go-ahead for the initial rollout.

This decision will be announced in the next few days, departmental officials said.

One of the issues that will be taken into account is the distance of the GP clinics from the state government vaccine hubs that will be providing the Pfizer vaccine.

It is vital to make sure some regions are not overserviced while others miss out on having a vaccination point, the officials said.