Susie O’Brien: By any measure, the jab rollout is a shambles

Although we have one of the best co-ordinated and funded health systems in the world many countries are managing their rollouts better than us.

Political spin doctors are the only winners so far from the slow, cumbersome, vaccine rollout. State and federal government ministers were out this week spruiking their achievements as the vaccine rollout reached the second stage.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said the move from 1A to the 1B category was a “signature day for Australia”.

State Employment Minister Jaala Pulford also congratulated Victoria for exceeding our vaccination targets, saying she was “very pleased” with progress.

Yet the situation on the streets – and in the clinics- is very different indeed. While politicians were busy congratulating themselves, GPs on the front line have been left with desperate, confused patients, no vaccine and phones ringing off the hook.

Patients can’t get appointments and doctors can’t get doses – with some getting only 50 doses a week for many hundreds of vulnerable elderly patients. Some doctors have even had to cancel patients they’ve already booked because the doses of the vaccine they’ve ordered haven’t arrived.

Michael Graham, CEO Victoria Aboriginal Health Services, receiving his COVID-19 vaccination.

Rather than help, the Federal Government has made things worse by releasing a list of eligible clinics about to start vaccinating from Monday. But many aren’t ready and don’t have any vaccine to administer.

It’s the last thing vulnerable patients need. What they want is certainty over when and how they will get vaccinated. We are now months down the track and no closer to being able to tell them what’s going on.

It’s a shambles.

The 1B phase of the rollout involves six million people, including Australians over 70, young people with health conditions, frontline healthcare workers and Indigenous Australians over 55.

The decision to move to this stage appears to be shortsighted given that approvals have not even been finalised for the locally-made Astra-Zeneca vaccine.

And in some places in country Victoria, the priority 1A health workers haven’t yet been vaccinated.

Although the federal government has had months to plan and co-ordinate the rollout, there appear to be serious flaws. One major hurdle is the lack of certainty over international supplies, but this has been compounded by state/federal bickering, a reliance on targets that are unlikely to be met and a lack of co-ordination and planning.

Health Minister Greg Hunt.

Things didn’t get off to a good start with the online booking system unable to cope with more than one million people trying to book appointments. HealthEngine – the company that was fined last year for sharing private patient data – won the multimillion-dollar contract.

There are also some patients who say they’re getting told to book in jabs with their local clinics but they don’t yet meet the criteria.

In other cases, the problem is the clinic, which has not been approved despite applying some months ago.

On just about every measure, Australia’s vaccine rollout is limping rather than galloping forward.

Although we have one of the best co-ordinated and funded health systems in the world, countries like Israel, the Seychelles, the United Arab Emirates and the United States are managing their rollouts better than us. Even India is managing two million jabs a day.

It’s what we weary taxpayers have come to expect from inept leaders at war with each other making politically motivated decisions.

Hunt already setting up a needless state/federal blame game: “We’re really confident that all of the states will continue to ramp up, I understand that there have been different paces … but all of them have good plans,” he said, damning states with faint praise.

Three weeks into our vaccination process and only 164,000 doses have been administered across the country. In the first week there were only 33,700 actual jabs – well under the initial target of 80,000 a week.

If we’re going to get to 20 million people by the end of October, we have to get to 200,000 doses a day and we haven’t yet reached 1000 doses a day nationally.

While some of the issues are beyond the control in charge, such as weather delays in the eastern states, the 20 million benchmark feels a long way off.

Officials tell us things are going to get better over the next few weeks, but they can’t tell us when the rollout is going to start meeting targets. They can’t tell us how many doses are going to arrive at clinics and when. And they can’t guarantee doctors will be able to administer the vaccine to their patients who managed to make appointments.

Many are elderly or ill people who spent last year alone, afraid and at home. They deserve much better from both levels of government who should be more concerned with health than headlines.