Retirement village jab delay

Wellington retirement village residents are having to wait longer for their Covid-19 vaccines than hoped.

Wellington Hutt Valley and Capital and Coast District Health Board won’t be visiting residents in retirement villages — most of whom are in priority group three — to give them jabs until August.

The DHB won’t explain the delay but retirement villages have been told it is due to a vaccine shortage.

Capital and Coast DHB confirmed earlier this week that it had completed its vaccine rollout at all rest homes classified as group 2. However, this excludes residents over 65 living in the wider retirement village communities who are classed as group 3.

Both groups are currently being vaccinated, according to the Ministry of Health website.

However, residents at Ryman’s Rita Angus Retirement Village in Kilbirnie were told by management this week that the clinics planned for early July had been postponed due to “circumstances beyond our control”. Village management said the earliest unconfirmed date for the next clinic was mid-August.

Residents and staff in Ryman’s residential care areas have had their vaccines, but those living in the wider retirement villages and aged over 65 were still waiting.

Hutt Valley DHB and Capital & Coast DHB director of strategy, planning & performance Rachel Haggerty said the DHBs would be working with pharmacy vaccinators to offer onsite vaccinations at many of these villages.

The amount of people who would be vaccinated and the exact dates were still to be determined, but likely to be from August, she said.

The DHB did not respond to repeated questions about why residents had to wait until August.

Earlier this week CCDHB completed its vaccine rollout to more than 5000 residents and staff at 46 aged residential care facilities across Wellington, Porirua, the Hutt Valley and Ka¯piti Coast who have now had both doses of the vaccine.

Last week director general of health Ashley Bloomfield confirmed the rollout for prisoners and Defence Force personnel would be slowed down as it manages its “tight stocks” over the next five weeks.

His comments came after Covid19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the rollout would not need to be scaled down based on the vaccine deliveries expected.