Hundreds of frontline health staff in Central Otago are receiving their COVID-19 vaccinations and the process is moving like clockwork. 

Ranui Home Hairdresser Denise Fowler says she was nervous about receiving the jab but knew it was something she had to do to keep others safe. 

Registered nurse Christina Curtin administered Denise’s injection with skill. 

The jab only took a moment and any concerns beforehand were forgotten forever.

Maniototo staff will receive their jabs this weekend, with their vaccinations expected to mean more than 1000 people in Central Otago would have received the vaccine. 

WellSouth’s Moira Finn says the vaccinations are being performed at clockwork by GPs across the region. 

“None of us are safe until we are all safe,” Moira says. 

HealthCentral in Alexandra has led the delivery of the vaccine in Central Otago and surrounding area, with weekend and evening clinics which began on Tuesday 20 April. 

The HealthCentral team, supported by other vaccinators from within the region have ensured rest home residents at Alexandra’s Ranui, Maniototo Hospital, Ranfurly, and Teviot Valley Rest Home in Roxburgh, and Cromwell’s aged care facility Rippenburn receive their vaccines as well. 

Ranui Home Hairdresser Denise Fowler received the COVID-19 vaccination this week. Photo Vicki McLean. 

“Booking patients and delivering vaccinations is what we do in general practice,” says Jenaya Smith, HealthCentral general manager.  

While she acknowledged that the heightened cold chain requirements of the Pfizer vaccine makes the delivery of the COVID in primary care slightly more challenging than influenza or MMR, Jenaya added “we’ve proven that it is able to be managed in a primary care setting”.

“Receiving a vaccine in your usual general practice is a more comfortable and trusting environment for most people. While I think it is a really good model we have here in Southern, I hope primary care is able to do more, including our own enrolled patients in the future,” she says.

WellSouth chief executive Andrew Swanson-Dobbs says Jenaya’s views are consistent with what other practices in the network have been saying.

“Southern general practices are keen to be involved, to support the implementation of the COVID-19 vaccine programme and, in particular, many want to deliver the vaccine to their own patients when the time comes – likely July and throughout the remainder of 2021,” Andrew says,

He says Southern DHB has been supportive and accommodating to having WellSouth and general practices involved in the programme.  

For practices that don’t necessarily have the resources to deliver the COVID-19 vaccine, they are eager to have WellSouth support or have the vaccines delivered at another GP practice, he says.

“Having general practice be a part of the COVID-19 vaccination programme is efficient, it’s effective and it promotes equity of access to the vaccine in a region where 40% of the population reside rurally,” Andrew says.

The next step in the vaccine rollout will see the same groups receiving the second dose of the vaccine and then Groups 3a, b & c – mostly older persons, and those with underlying health conditions.

In addition to general practices helping to deliver the vaccine in rural areas of the region, Mornington Health Centre and Queens Park Medical Centre have been instrumental in vaccinating port workers in Dunedin and Bluff.

General practices in Southern are playing an important role in the COVID-19 vaccine campaign in the region, helping make vaccinations more accessible across the district.

More than one quarter of vaccines delivered in the Southern region have been provided by general practices since the vaccine roll out began on 2 March when Port Chalmers and Bluff port workers and their household contacts were the first to get the vaccine here.

While ‘permanent’ clinics have been set up in Dunedin and Invercargill by Southern DHB to serve urban residents, a model that uses general practice teams to deliver the COVID-19 vaccine in rural areas means more people in more places have access to the vaccine more quickly.

Starting 10 April, practices have stepped up to help deliver the first of two doses of the PfizerBioNTech vaccine to key groups, helping Southern to outpace many other health jurisdictions in the country to reach targeted populations.

Wakatipu Medical and Queenstown Medical Centre held clinics in early April delivering vaccines in Queenstown. Targeted populations included border workers and their household contacts (group 1a&1b) which helped ensure the opening of the trans-Tasman travel bubble with Australia, and then frontline health care workers (group 2a & 2b).  

The following weekend (17 and 18 April in Wanaka), Wanaka Medical Centre and Aspiring Medical Centre provided clinics for Groups 2a and 2b and local aged residential care facilities - Elmslie House and Aspiring Enliven Care Centre.

A ‘flying squad’ from WellSouth primary health network’s Invercargill office, worked with West Otago Health in Tapanui, vaccinating frontline health care workers on Thursday 22 April, as well as Ribbonwood Rest Home.

In Te Anau, one of the more remote parts of the district, Fiordland Medical Practice stepped up to deliver the vaccine to groups 2a & 2b.