A SURPRISE government announcement today left pharmacies grappling with a rush of phonecalls from younger people seeking vaccine appointments.
Prior to 8.30am, no pharmacy knew that they would be given the go ahead to start vaccinating Ireland’s 18-34-year-olds, from Monday 5th July. Health Minister Stephen Donnelly announced the news early this morning, creating a frenzy of demand before pharmacies even opened their doors.
Pharmacists say they are delighted to play their part in the roll-out, but they say more engagement is needed from the HSE.
Fergus Brennan, CEO of Brennans Pharmacies, said more detailed direction from the HSE is urgently required.
“We are delighted and the public is delighted to hear of this. Pharmacy has been waiting and willing and ready to play its part in vaccinations from as early as February.
“But it’s frustrating for pharmacists that the Minister announced a major opening up of the vaccination service through Pharmacy, without pre-agreement, without any pre-planning, on a Friday morning.
“That has left us all fielding hundreds of calls from anxious people. ”
Fergus’ advice for the thousands of young people contacting chemists today is to be patient.
“It will take us a few weeks to get to grips with how fast we can deliver the service to larger numbers. But pharmacists have proven over 10 years of winter flu vaccinations that we will deliver on our promises.
“We have the premises, the staff, the expertise and the local knowledge to deliver a vaccine service. We know we will be able to make a big difference.”
The vital information that pharmacists need before next Monday is how much actual stock of vaccine they will be receiving.
“We need to know how many doses we are getting, how often and how HSE deliveries will be sustained over the next weeks and months,” he said.
Brennans Pharmacies, which has branches in Buncrana, Clonmany, Creeslough and Dublin, had to regretfully close their online waiting list for 18-34’s after it reached over 300 names today, due to a lack of certainty around future vaccine deliveries from the HSE
In the past 10 days, their three Donegal branches in the vaccnine programme have already delivered approx 60 J+J vaccines to the over 50s.
Being empowered to deliver Covid vaccines to the community was always the goal of pharmacies, Fergus said, but they now urgently need proper engagement and support from the HSE to ensure a successful roll out to the large cohort of 18-34 year olds in their local community pharmacies.
He said: “GP clinics were fully resourced, they were able to close their doors to vaccinate large numbers of patients in single clinic days.
Pharmacies have to run their day to day businesses, providing their normal prescription services and run a vaccination service alongside that safely.
“If the HSE wants to involve us fully in the plan, it needs to resource and support and partner with us, as they have done with GPs. Then we can and will deliver a convenient professional service at local level.”