PHOTO/FILE
SUE TEODORO
[email protected]
Vaccination plans for Wairarapa are ramping up as covid restrictions in Auckland start to relax, and widespread transmission is closer to becoming a reality.
Vaccine uptake across the region so far has been good. However, with 25 per cent still unvaccinated, healthcare providers and other leaders are calling on people to disregard misinformation and get the jab. Wairarapa DHB is planning to take the vaccine to the community.
DHB chief executive Dale Oliff set out the plans as she acknowledged Wairarapa Hospital would struggle to deal with a covid outbreak.
As of Monday, 51 per cent of Wairarapa’s eligible population was fully vaccinated, with 75 per cent having had their first dose.
Maori and Pasifika are at 51 per cent and 69 per cent for the first dose, and 30 per cent and 48 per cent fully vaccinated, respectively.
“We have 120 staff dedicated to covid-19 vaccination, and they are doing a great job, but there is no vaccination without arms,” Oliff said.
So far, vaccines had been given to people who actively sought them.
“Now, we need to get to the rest of our 12 years and older population. We really have our work cut out for us.
“We are getting out into the community, and we are making it as easy as possible for people to be vaccinated,” she said.
“Our team will go out and vaccinate anyone that needs it, in their own home if need be. They just need to send us an email, and we will be there.”
Outreach teams will also be able to go to workplaces and clubs and vaccinate groups together.
“We will do whatever it takes to get arms vaccinated and protect our region.”
With no intensive care unit, Wairarapa DHB can become stretched even on a regular day.
“Our hospital would really struggle if we were to find ourselves in the middle of covid,” she said.
“We are a small rural region. Our community and primary healthcare services and our hospital would very quickly be overwhelmed in the event of a delta outbreak.
“The best protection is vaccination. We have the capacity and the community plan in place to vaccinate nearly 42,000 people twice. We just need them to bring us their arms.
“We need to vaccinate, to protect those that can’t,” she said.
Pae tu Mokai Featherston Medical has a strong community medicine focus across South Wairarapa. About 45 per cent of its eligible patients are fully vaccinated, but about 1000 patients are not vaccinated.
Dr Harsha Dias is a GP at the practice, which is working closely with the DHB.
“We are contacting patients directly to answer any questions they might have about the vaccine,” he said.
The practice’s nurse practitioner, Corina Ngatai, is working with the DHB in rolling out pop-up vaccination and hauora clinics.
“At these clinics, whanau can ask questions about the vaccine and get the right information without pressure,” she said.
Wairarapa MP Kieran McAnulty said the region’s vaccination achievements reflected everyone’s hard work and applauded the DHB’s plans. He appealed directly to the vaccine-hesitant.
“I just want to say to people that are hesitant to get the vaccine – it is safe. Please don’t believe what you read on Facebook.
“There’s no conspiracy. It is not an experiment. It is as safe as any other vaccine we have had before – as safe as the vaccine that rid us of polio and as safe as the vaccine that eliminated smallpox,” he said.
“New Zealand deliberately delayed its vaccine rollout until MedSafe cleared the vaccine. This was to give people the confidence they needed. We wanted to make sure it is safe, and it is. Please get vaccinated.”
More than 90 per cent of covid cases in the community so far are unvaccinated.
“If you don’t get vaccinated, you risk the health of yourself and your family. You risk the health of those that can’t get vaccinated and the health of our young children. Get vaccinated for them,” he said.
- More information, including community vaccination sites and other advice, is at http://www.wairarapa.dhb.org.nz/
