Paramedics may be asked to vaccinate seniors
Residents aged 80 and older among next priority groups
Niagara paramedics hope to play a role in delivering vaccinations to people who are unable to get to vaccination clinics, as efforts to protect Niagara residents from COVID-19 expand in weeks to come.
After top priority groups including seniors and staff at long-term-care homes and front-line hospital workers are inoculated, Niagara acting medical officer of health Dr. Mustafa Hirji said, the next groups to receive vaccinations will be people aged 80 and older who are living in the community, as well as residents of lowerrisk retirement homes and Indigenous communities.
When those groups begin receiving their vaccinations, likely in March, paramedics may play a role in ensuring the vaccine will still be provided to people who might struggle to make their way to the Niagara Health vaccination clinic at Seymour-hannah Sports and Entertainment Centre in St. Catharines, said Niagara Emergency Medical Services Chief Kevin Smith.
“We are prepared to provide resources to assist with the mass vaccination community clinics, but we also see a role for our mobile integrated health teams to assist in vaccinating target populations, whether they be the elderly that are homebound, homeless individuals and other at-risk cohorts that otherwise might not access a fixed clinic,” Smith said.
“This is being developed closely with public health and with the guidance of the vaccination task force,” he said.
Hirji said primary care doctors will be enlisted to start contacting their patients to schedule them for vaccines once there is more supply, which is expected to be later in March and into April.
Garden City Family Health Team executive director Mary Keith said primary care providers will be ready when that time comes.
She said her offices have begun receiving phone calls from people trying to book appointments to receive a vaccine, although vaccines have yet to be made available to the general public.
“People are anxious to get vaccinated. We’ve had a bunch of calls,” she said.
“We’re ready to assist them in the rollout of that plan when they’re ready to unveil it … We’re just waiting for the call to get ourselves ready to provide staffing for clinics,” Keith said.
Niagara EMS spokesperson Bryce Brunarski said paramedics have been brought on board to work with other medical professionals who are inoculating patients at Seymour-hannah.
He said there are 25 paramedics working at the clinic, and more may be brought in as needed.
“Where we can lend a hand, we will definitely step up to the plate and, of course, not compromise any of our day-to-day stuff,” he said.
He said paramedics were informed late last week they, too, have been identified as a priority group for receiving vaccines.
“Our front-line paramedics and operation supervisors, they can actually start booking appointments to get into the clinic. It’s pretty exciting stuff.”
Sean Simpson, a Niagara-onthe-lake pharmacist and a Niagara Region COVID-19 vaccination task force member, said his trade will be vital in the rollout, too.
“I fully expect to see pharmacists play a critical role in the rollout as supply improves,” said Simpson, who owns and runs Pharmasave Simpson’s Pharmacy on Niagara Stone Road in Virgil.
With so much concern over COVID-19, St. Catharines pharmacist Phil Hauserin expects that up to 80 per cent of Ontarians will sign up for their shots.
Dr. Karl Stobbe, a family physician and member of the Region’s vaccine task force, advises people to follow public health recommendations such as wearing a mask and avoiding contact with people from outside their homes.
Even after the vaccine becomes widely available, he said it will take time before enough people are vaccinated to allow those precautions to be relaxed.
“We’re not going to see the vaccine produce any meaningful drop in COVID rates until we have at least 30 to 40 per cent of the population vaccinated and really we’re not going to see a huge change until even after that,” Stobbe said.
“All this distancing, staying home and not going out and not congregating, not occasionally breaking the rules, that’s going to need to continue for quite some time, even for those people that are vaccinated.”