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Several large-scale vaccination clinics will be established in Dublin, Cork and Galway as part of new plans to administer the Covid-19 vaccine to people over 70 years of age.
Under the new plans, the first of these clinics will be established at Dublin City University (DCU), where patients enrolled in 121 clinics throughout the capital will receive the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
Details of the new plan have come after discussions between the HSE and the Irish Medical Organization (IMO).
However, most patients over the age of 70 will continue to receive the Covid vaccine from their own family medical office.
In a newsletter for its members on Friday night, seen by The Irish Times, the IMO said that some 72,000 people over the age of 85 will be the first to be vaccinated, the first of 490,000 people over 70 in the entire state. Those over 85 years of age will be vaccinated in three-week time slots, starting on February 15 “during which time the objective is to vaccinate those over 85 years of age and then continue with the age guideline”.
‘Friends’ system
All patients will receive two doses of Pfizer or Moderna. The vast majority of patients will be vaccinated at their own GP (about 70 percent of GP practices will see their patients vaccinated on site) with deliveries through the HSE cold chain to all offices with more than 200 people over 70 years old.
These practices should have a registration area, a refrigeration area, which will double as an area to reconstitute vaccines, and a vaccination area and an observation area. These will be managed by GPs, administrative staff and nurses.
However, for practices with less than 200 over 70 years, about 400 practices, vaccinations will be carried out in two ways. The first will be through vaccination clinics for GPs, and the second will be through a system of “complicity”.
Vaccination clinics in urban centers will be in agreed locations; one of the first will be at DCU, where 121 practices will come together to run the clinics. Reservation, registration and payment will be carried out through the GPs’ own practices, and doctors are told that “the only change is where the patient will receive the vaccine.”
The clinics will operate “in the agreed age phases until all these patients are vaccinated and at 28-day intervals.” They will run on the weekend.
The “buddy system,” outside of urban centers, will also include practices with fewer than 200 patients over the age of 70, who will be paired with a larger practice in their area. Smaller office patients will attend the larger office, but will be treated by their GP and his or her staff.
Indemnification agreements
To facilitate planning, GPs will be asked to identify and register patients older than 70 years, in each age cohort, and invite them for vaccination at the appropriate location, either in their own practice, in a vaccination clinic or in a “joint” consultation. .
Once that process is complete, the vaccine order can be placed and syringes, needles and vaccine cards will be delivered. The GPs will have a delivery every two weeks.
According to the IMO, the compensation agreements will cover GPs and practice nurses. Members were told that the hope is that all GPs and practice nurses will be vaccinated before the program begins; those who are not vaccinated will be provided through acute care hospitals.
They will be given the AstraZeneca vaccine, except when a different vaccine was given first, in which case the same vaccine will be given in a second dose.
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