COVID-19 vaccine: do you see your GP? As the pace slows, vaccination centers are closing their doors



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The Klaipėda District Municipality announced last week that it will be much easier to get vaccinated against the coronavirus from now on.

Residents will be able to do this at their healthcare facility without prior registration during any family doctor visit. It is enough to express the desire to be vaccinated.

Among other things, it is also coordinating so that primary care professionals can vaccinate patients in workplaces, social services, patient homes and the mobile vaccination bus.

The vaccination is decided by the municipalities

Doctors have been debating for some time whether it would not be more effective to offer vaccines to people in medical facilities.

The Ministry of Health (SAM) says that it is now up to the municipalities to decide where to vaccinate the population.

“The ministry urges municipalities to extend vaccination to as many medical institutions as possible. The current procedure does not hinder this,” explained Julijanas Gališanskis, representative of SAM, to the portal tv3.lt.

When asked to clarify whether smaller facilities could face difficulties, as it would make it more difficult to guarantee patient flow, which may require the elimination of some doses of the vaccine, he argued that rational use of the vaccine could be guaranteed in both large vaccination centers. and smaller establishments.

Will the vaccination centers close the door?

Municipalities themselves have confirmed plans to bring more concerns about COVID-19 vaccination to polyclinics.

Here, the Vilnius municipality intends to close the Litexpo vaccination center from the beginning of August due to the slowdown in vaccination rates.

“There will be other means: pharmacies, polyclinics, buses. We went back to where we started, because it seems that the massive wave of vaccination will have ended,” said the mayor of the capital, Remigijus Šimašius.

According to the Vilnius City Health Department, coronavirus vaccination will soon be available in all outpatient clinics:

Šimašius expresses his condolences to the families of the deceased employees of Vilniaus Vandenai

It is added that at that time, hospitals are still vaccinating patients and staff who wish to do so.

The municipality of Marijampolė has also announced the closure of the vaccination center and invites those who want to be vaccinated or receive a second dose to go to the primary health care center or their family clinics.

Skirmantas Mockevičius, the mayor of Jurbarkas district, representatives of the Association of Municipalities for Health Affairs, assured that the way back to primary health care centers is inevitable. It is true, he stressed that the situation is very different in each municipality.

“For example, in our district there are already almost 55% vaccinated, it seems that there are 8 of us in Lithuania, and the main vaccination took place in our polyclinic. Our primary health care center is enrolled by most of the district residents, so they had a database of the people they interacted with, so we won’t change anything. People can get vaccinated at any time, unless they have the vaccine they want at that time, ”he said.

The problem: because the vaccination site and the reluctance to vaccinate

Speaking of the municipalities that have especially created vaccination centers, S. Mockevičius stated that the further away, the more it is not worth keeping them.

“It seems that we are returning to the original situation that started everything, from vaccination in polyclinics. There are also mobile commandos. Clearly, apparently, the main problem is not the question of the vaccination site, but the reluctance to get vaccinated.

The biggest problem is how to persuade the skeptical, undecided. Apparently the focus here is on changing the legislation accordingly. Because from what has been talked about for a long time, if tests were paid for, there would probably be a greater incentive to get vaccinated, ”said the mayor of Jurbarkas.

According to him, one of the main “medicines” here could be the advice and encouragement of a family doctor or other trusted specialist.

“Maybe the word of a nurse or other known person with whom you have registered, a specialist that you visit. It gives the best result, and some kind of incentive doesn’t seem to have done much. It’s still a black job to call 10 times, ”said the mayor.

(photo from Klaipeda municipality)

A mobile vaccination center is operating in Kaunas

Milda Labašauskaitė, Head of the Medical Care Division of the Kaunas City Municipal Administration, also did not rule out the possibility that the role of hospitals and polyclinics in the vaccination process will increase in the near future. Still, he emphasized that efforts are still being made to take advantage of other opportunities to reach the person.

“Hospitals still have vaccines and can vaccinate, but here specific groups of patients are vaccinated. We do not rule out the possibility that vaccination in polyclinics and hospitals will become more general later, but now we are using the available methods.

To bring COVID-19 closer to the population, the vaccines available in the city have been available for some time not only in the main vaccination center of the city, the Ice Palace. Since January, doctors have been vaccinated at home by residents who cannot move independently due to their health condition.

A few weeks ago, a mobile vaccination center was opened in Kaunas, housed in one of the 100 MAN Lion’s City 12 hybrid buses running in the city. In it, 1117 people were vaccinated just last week without prior registration ”, he commented.

Vaccination

According to M. Labašauskaitė, the vaccination bus returns to the stops in the squares of Laisvės ave., Akropolis, Mega, Urmo and Rotušės, which are regularly visited by the population on the same days.

“In addition, a few days are dedicated exclusively to traveling to the city’s neighborhoods: the mobile vaccination point has already visited Aleksotas, Eigulius, Žaliakalnis and plans to travel to Petrašiūnai next week. The Kaunas Municipality, together with the Kaunas City Polyclinic, also coordinates the vaccination team’s trips to companies and institutions in the city, where at least a few dozen people who want to get vaccinated gather. A vaccination team arrives at your facility and, if facilities are not available, a vaccination bus. We see that companies are applying more actively, but we continue to urge that they request vaccines without delay, ”he urged.

Financial incentives for GPs

The portal tv3.lt recalls that the news that the family doctor or his team will receive an incentive supplement of 5 euros for each vaccinated patient with registration has managed to ignite the discontent of the population.

Doctors regretted that this was somewhat less understood and emphasized that it was long-awaited funding for overtime before the mass vaccination of working with patient lists.

“As for the funding itself, we were invited to an informal working group and we talked about how we can still encourage people to get vaccinated. And one of the incentives was to involve as many GPs and their teams as possible.

Because realistically, if we did those jobs before the mass vaccination, it was our overtime. Because you still have to accept planned patients, after which you make lists, who has what diagnosis, what treatment they receive and things like that, ”explained Alma Astafjeva, chair of the board of the Lithuanian Family Physicians Union.

Family doctor

The family doctor is closer to the patient.

When asked if there was still room to persuade people, a union spokeswoman told the mayor of Jurbarkas that the family doctor was still closer to the patient and that if the person had questions or concerns about vaccination, the doctor could have a decisive voice. .

“When the doctors worked intensively with the patients, called and educated them, it is visible and the work of the whole team is high: a high percentage of vaccinated patients. So the principle remains the same: SAM encourages that time, but we can no longer work overtime because planned patients no longer receive help. So now there is a way to give family doctors enough time, “commented A. Astafjeva.

She also told herself that she personally has many patients signing up for the vaccine. “I can? Do I need it? Do I belong? What if I’ve ever been sick?” – doctors get a lot of questions.

“But this is all a waste of time, and we’ve actually been working since January, February, until the mass vaccination started. We have just received a request from the municipality to make lists of people who want to be vaccinated. It is good to allocate at least some funds. Yes, it could have been before, ”said the doctor.

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More than 4.4 thousand people received the first dose of the vaccine per day.

A total of 10,000 people were vaccinated against the coronavirus last day. 722 residents: 4,481 received the first dose of vaccine and 6241 received the second dose of vaccine.

In the country, COVID-19 has been vaccinated with at least one dose of 1 million vaccines. 309 thousand 549 people, both 1 million. 112 thousand 266.

At least one dose of the vaccine was 54.8%. more than 80, 69.4 percent. – population between 75 and 79 years old, 71.9%. – 70-74 years of population and 70.7% – population of 65 to 69 years.

In the age group 55 to 64 years, 60.2% are vaccinated, in the group 45 to 54 years, 54.1%, in the group 35 to 44 years, 52.6%, in the group from 25 to 34 years, 45.5%, – in the group of 24 years – 43.6 percent. population. 11.3 percent of children ages 12 to 15 were vaccinated.

These values ​​increased by several tenths of a percentage point per day.

In Lithuania, 46.9% have received at least one coronavirus vaccine. people: 0.2 percentage points more than a day before.

In total, Lithuania has received 3 million. 338,755 doses of vaccine, of which 2 million were used. 421 thousand 815 doses.

Currently unused more than 916 thousand. vaccine dose.



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