Old friends to get out and about after receiving the Pfizer vaccine

Fay Harris and Julie Rankin will be among the nation’s first recipients of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Aged-care residents and friends Julie Rankin and Fay Harris are among the first wave of Australian COVID vaccinations this week. Picture: Nikki Short

Fay Harris, 84, is keen for the twice weekly outings from her nursing home in Sydney’s south to resume. With aged-care residents so vulnerable to COVID, they stopped during 2020 and haven’t started again.

Her friend Julie Rankin, 67, is also in the home due to Alzheimer’s. A keen knitter, she is looking to again feeling safe enough to go and buy wool from the store down the road in Engadine.

Fay and Julie will be among the nation’s first recipients of the COVID-19 vaccine, with the Moran Aged Care facility in ­Engadine beginning to roll out its vaccination program from Monday.

It is one of 240 nursing homes across the country to receive the Pfizer vaccine this week. They join aged-care staff and border and hotel quarantine workers, and frontline health workers most likely to be exposed to the virus as first in line for the jab.

“I think it will make a big difference, not just for us but for the whole community,” great-grandmother Fay said. “Last year was hard. For three months we couldn’t go out and couldn’t have visitors.”

While the home has resumed taking residents out on the bus, they aren’t stopping for a morning tea or lunch like they used to. “When you are out of your community it is really hard to feel part of that community,” she said.

“The vaccination will make me feel protected so I’ll have confidence in going out.”

Former maths teacher Julie, a grandmother to five, said she hoped getting the vaccine would allow things to “get back to normal”, especially for her group of knitters and weavers in the home.

“I want to feel good about going out and I think this will help,” she said. “Normally I go shopping for wool so I can knit. I make blankets for people.

“So I’m happy to be part of this. It will be a good thing.”

Sean Rooney, chief executive of peak aged-care provider group Leading Age Services Australia, said the majority of nursing home residents supported the jab.

“I welcome the leadership that Fay and Julie are showing by having the jab,” he said.

Health Minister Greg Hunt confirmed on Sunday that the current medical advice remained that workers in aged-care homes would not be required to have the vaccine as a condition of work.

But Mr Rooney encouraged all staff to be vaccinated.

“Mandatory vaccinations are not new to aged care as we have had these in place for influenza vaccinations at times,” he said.