Windsor Regional Hospital receives more vaccines for prescribed 2nd doses

Another shipment of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has arrived in Windsor.

Windsor Regional Hospital received additional doses on Tuesday, the hospital said in a news release. Much of the new supply will be used to inoculate people who were already vaccinated and are ready for the necessary second dose.

“This latest shipment will allow for more individuals to be vaccinated,” the hospital said.

“However, we have started second doses today and will be doing nothing but second doses starting Jan. 24 ... unless more (doses) are procured by the federal government and sent to Windsor-essex.”

As of Monday, nearly 5,600 individuals had received an initial shot from the hospital.

The first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines arrived in Windsor on Dec. 21, and immunizations began at the St. Clair College Sportsplex, still outfitted as a field hospital, the next day. A second shipment was delivered on Jan. 5.

Without the shipment received on Tuesday, the hospital said it would have run out of its remaining doses on Wednesday.

“We are stealing future doses by putting as many vaccines into people's arms as possible as directed by the province. It is the right thing to do,” said David Musyj, hospital president and CEO.

The hospital said it is vaccinating 500 people every day, “focusing on the priority groups set by the province.”

In Phase 1 of the province's COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan, doses are available for health-care workers in hospitals, long-term care and retirement homes, other congregate living settings and members of remote Indigenous communities.

The Windsor-essex County Health Unit expects to receive its second shipment of the Moderna vaccine at the start of February. The health unit has been vaccinating residents, staff and essential care givers at local long-term care and retirement homes.

A statement from Erie Shores Healthcare CEO Kristin Kennedy posted to Facebook Monday evening said the hospital chose to vaccinate its administrative team once its front-line workers were immunized.

“We had vaccination appointments available and doses that had to be administered quickly or they would have to be discarded, helping no one,” Kennedy wrote.

The Leamington hospital employs 376 and has an “all-handson-deck approach to ensuring our patients are treated,” which means “anyone with a health-care background at ESHC including our leadership team (which includes doctors and nurses) are called on to gown up and assist with patients.”

Kennedy said she has “personally worked alongside” front-line health-care workers during the pandemic, “within long-term care homes and the agri-sector.”

She did not say whether or not she had received the COVID-19 vaccine.

Both Musyj and Janice Kaffer, presidents and CEO of Hotel-dieu Grace Healthcare, told the Star on Friday that they had not received the COVID-19 vaccine.

We are stealing future doses by putting as many vaccines into people's arms as possible.