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Nurses, doctors and health care workers in acute hospitals throughout the Mid-West have received a new vaccine against Covid-19 as part of a regional vaccination programme.
This programme will see the vaccine administered to all staff in UL Hospitals’ Group, the HSE Mid-West Community Healthcare Organisation and other healthcare settings.
Vaccination at University Hospital Limerick (UHL), got under way on Monday, and at University Maternity Hospital Limerick (UMHL) on Tuesday.
Up to Tuesday evening, 490 staff in total had been vaccinated under the programme. By the end of the week, with plans at an advanced stage to start vaccination at Croom, Nenagh, Ennis and St John’s Hospital, it is envisaged that at least 1,500 healthcare workers will have received the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
The Hospitals Group has a network of peer vaccinators who have been trained to administer the vaccines to staff, initially to those directly involved in patient care, including nursing, medical, healthcare assistants, allied health professionals and support staff.
Staff nurse Rosaline O’Brien became the first healthcare professional in the Mid-West to receive a vaccine against Covid-19 on Monday.
Rosaline, a County Limerick native who has worked in University Hospital Limerick for 40 years, and as a triage nurse in the hospital’s Emergency Department for the past 27 years, said the arrival of the first batch of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was hugely encouraging for frontline healthcare workers, who have been challenged as never before throughout the 10 long months of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m working in the ED for 27 years, and I feel very privileged to have the opportunity to get the vaccine. I really wanted to get it, because I think it’s very important to take the vaccine, especially as a healthcare worker. It’s a pandemic, and not just something you can dismiss. It’s been very tough since March. It’s not easy, and it affects everybody all over the hospital. It’s very serious, and I think the only way is to get the vaccine, and move on.”
Dr Catherine Motherway, who administered the vaccine to Rosaline, hopes this vaccination programme represents the beginning of the end of this pandemic.
“Everybody still needs to be really, really careful. Keep your distance, wash your hands, stay at home. Really try and stop the current surge, so we can continue to roll out vaccination across our community, our institutional care people, our elderly, our vulnerable, our healthcare workers and our entire population, so everybody gets the vaccine. Everybody needs to be alive to get the vaccine, so please be very careful while you’re waiting, and we’re going to get to everyone as fast as possible.”
Each person who gets the Covid-19 vaccine in the coming weeks will receive a HSE vaccine information leaflet, along with more detailed manufacturer’s patient information leaflet, before getting the vaccine. Afterwards, a vaccine record card is given, showing the name and batch of the vaccine they have received.
Colette Cowan, CEO, UL Hospitals’ Group, said: “This vaccine is giving us new hope at a time when we are entering a dangerous new phase of the pandemic. Alarming increases in case numbers and in the rates of those testing positive mean we can expect hospital services to come under significant pressure in the coming weeks. This makes it all the more important that our staff are available when patients need them most and are protected against the virus which has caused so much disruption in services over the past year.”
“We look forward to the rollout of the vaccine across the wider population in the coming weeks and months. More immediately, we are again asking the public to support the most vulnerable members of our community through this next difficult phase by continuing to follow the public health guidelines.”
Dan Danaher
