1200 nurses being hired and walk-ins welcome at mass vax hubs
Extra nurse graduates will join a fleet of vans launched to complement major changes at Adelaide’s vax hubs as South Australia’s border-opening date draws nearer.
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More than 1200 extra nurses will be employed from next month and three metropolitan vaccination centres will accept walk-ins, as SA Health prepares for the reopening of borders.
To bolster jab rates in remote regions of the state, 10 decommissioned ambulances – dubbed vax vans – will be fitted out with specialist equipment to carry out vaccinations.
SA Health says the total crop of 1200 graduating nurses in November will be trained for frontline Covid-19 duties by mid-December, when the state is expected to reach the 80 per cent fully vaccinated trigger.
It’s the time the government is expected to ease restrictions and begin to open borders to Victoria and NSW.
Mass vaccination clinics at Wayville, Elizabeth and Noarlunga will be open to walk-ins from Monday in a bid to further boost vaccination rates, which last week hits record levels above 20,000 on four consecutive days.
Premier Steven Marshall said a $7m SA Health nursing and midwifery skills and training strategy will ensure each graduate nurse and midwife recruited receives the training and clinical supervision to be ready for the December challenges.
“As we safely transition into the next phase of our Covid-ready plan, we are massively expanding the capacity of our health system by activating hundreds of extra nurses so you can get the care you need, when you need it,” he said.
“The graduate nurses and midwives will be upskilled under a newly developed education and training program which will see their qualifications fast-tracked and new staff entering the Covid frontline gradually from mid-December.
“We will be equipped with an appropriately skilled and experienced nursing and midwifery workforce to meet the anticipated demand for Covid-19 positive cases and community transmission when we reopen our borders.”
The 1200 graduates will be in addition to a recruiting drive for an extra 370 nurses.
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation state secretary Elizabeth Dabars has repeatedly called for the full intake to be hired this year, rather than the usual quota of about 600, while the Opposition has criticised nurse redundancies.
The move to open the three mass vaccination clinics to walk-ins follows the success of the option at the Myer Centre, which has administered more than 4100 vaccines since it opened less than a month ago.
The first three of a fleet of 10 “vax vans” have been launched and will be available to all local health networks – each will carry 100 doses of vaccines and will “supercharge” the outreach program to low vaccination areas and groups including Indigenous communities, Health Minister Stephen Wade said.
Expert teams will also take the vans to community days to educate the public and answer any questions they have about vaccines.
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