By Raquel Mustillo
A VACCINATION van will soon arrive in the region as part of a highly-targeted vaccine distribution strategy to deliver essential vaccines to Limestone Coast residents.
The State Government has launched the mobile service – which will involve 10 recommissioned ambulance vehicles – to support the mobilisation of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout across the regions.
One of these vans has been allocated to the Limestone Coast.
The mobile unit will be supported by a public mobile pop-up vaccine clinic in Grant District Council and 750 additional appointments at the Mount Gambier Covid-19 vaccination clinic.
In a statement, the Limestone Coast Local Health Network said it continued to investigate opportunities to meet community demand and expand access to the vaccine, including boosting staff capacity, providing additional appointments and extending opening hours as needed.
“We expect to have a mobile vaccination van arrive soon for use in the region and we will provide more details about this service in the coming weeks,” the statement said.
“Our Covid-19 Vaccination Team have already provided mobile outreach clinics to industries, and planning is underway to establish a public mobile pop-up vaccine clinic in Grant DC to further boost vaccination rates.
“As we continue the vaccine rollout, approximately 750 additional appointments will be added next week at the Mount Gambier Covid-19 vaccination clinic.
“In addition, up to five additional registered nurses have commenced this week to support the increased demand and delivery of the vaccine rollout.”
Tarpeena resident and long-term Tarpeena Football Club representative Shirley Little said the pop-up vaccination was a fantastic idea for the broader region.
“I think it is wonderful to allow people to come out of the bigger towns and to the smaller communities and as people are aware there is a lot of traffic along the main road,” Ms Little said.
“The people who use this site could be truck drivers, delivery people and those who may not always be able to get into the major clinics.
“The pop-up clinic would suit people better including shift workers as well because of their difficult work hours as well as those who go through here to the vineyards.”
Grant District mayor Richard Sage was reluctant to comment on whether a pop-up clinic would increase vaccination numbers, citing the high number of council residents who work in Mount Gambier.
“It really depends whether the pop-up clinics will administer the vaccines after hours or across the weekends but it also depends on how it will work as well,” Mr Sage said.
“Our chemist here in Mount Gambier is already administering vaccinations to those who are unable to get an appointment or for seniors who may be cautious not to leave their homes and he has done a fantastic job so far.”
SA Ambulance Service Covid-19 incident commander Chris Howie said each of the 10 decommissioned ambulance vehicles will be fitted with fridges and storage cabinets with capacity to carry up to 100 doses of the vaccine.
“Mobile services have been a great solution throughout the pandemic to support the work of protecting our community,” he said.
“Decommissioned ambulances staffed by SA Ambulance Service clinicians have been successfully used to support pop-up testing clinics and to deliver vaccines to the homeless as part of the community outreach program.”
The expansion of the Covid-19 rollout follows a suggestion made by South Australian chief public health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier that vaccination rates within the Grant District Council area could be artificially low.
At a press conference last week, Prof Spurrier said the figures “didn’t really make sense” due to the high level of vaccinated Mount Gambier City Council ratepayers.
“Looking into this in more detail… our vaccine team suggested that it may be because people in Grant actually register their postcode as a PO Box,” Prof Spurrier said.
“Their address might be a PO Box in Mount Gambier.”
Mr Sage said vaccination rates had been “taken out of context” as the recorded data “goes off people’s Medicare postal code”.
“A lot of our residents have postal addresses, including a number of our elected members,” he said.
“This means the numbers for our electorate may have been captured in the Mount Gambier count in regards to vaccination which puts a bit of a screw on things.”
In the latest Federal Government data released this week, Grant District Council’s vaccination levels have not been recorded.
Last week, the data for Grant District Council’s vaccination rate was recorded as the lowest in the country with just 20.8 per cent of vaccines administered and 11.5 per cent of Grant’s total population of 7072 fully vaccinated.
The data released this week shows 86.1 per cent of residents within the Mount Gambier City Council district have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccination with 55.3 per cent of the population fully vaccinated.
Last week, the data revealed 81.4 per cent of Mount Gambier residents had one Covid-19 vaccine and 50.7 per cent of council’s 21,802 residents had been vaccinated.
