Darling Downs Health Service praises community after Covid vaccination super clinic

Health authorities have praised the Darling Downs community that turned up to receive their Covid-19 vaccination at this weekend’s super clinic.

Nearly 2000 vaccines were administered at the weekend during the first Darling Downs Health “super clinic” with health authorities praising the Toowoomba community for rolling up their sleeves and doing their part.

Baillie Henderson Hospital hosted the super clinic created as part of a mass statewide Covid vaccination push that saw 932 doses of Pfizer given on Saturday, June 5, and 1007 on Sunday.

Darling Down Health Service executive lead for the Covid-19 vaccination program Annette Scott said she was pleased with the turnout of people who made a mixture of online bookings and walk-in appointments.

“We’re very pleased with the results,” she said. “We saw a large proportion of the target group which was the 40-49 year olds, disability and aged care workers.

“We saw a large number of walk-ins, and I just have to compliment the Toowoomba community; they were kind and patient and considerate.

“We warned them we couldn’t guarantee (there wouldn’t be) wait times, and they were just very pleasant throughout the whole experience, so we were very grateful.”

Monique Morgan, part of the Covid vaccination project team at Baillie Henderson helps Dana and Ben Gouldson and their daughter Georgia check in. Saturday, June 5, 2021. Picture: Nev Madsen.

Ms Scott said the 1939 vaccinations administered at the weekend exceeded the initial target.

“We set out originally to do 1100 across the whole weekend but then we were able to staff the clinic to a greater capacity and when we saw that we could get staffing for a greater capacity we aimed for 1000 on Saturday and Sunday and were pretty pleased with that.”

With everyone who received a vaccine at the weekend requiring a second jab, Ms Scott said a second super clinic was slated to go ahead on June 26-27, but beyond that further vaccination drives from the public health sector were still in the planning stages.

“In terms of running an additional super clinic, we’re just working on the numbers now to see if we actually need to do it in this area,” she said.

“Now that we’ve got pharmacies and GPs on board and now that we’re building a greater number of capacity in our clinics we may not need to go to that level. That said, we haven’t taken it off the table.

“I think if you look at the collective figures (of vaccinations) we were already on track because we’ve also got the GP sector vaccinating and GP respiratory clinics vaccinating, so it wasn’t just us in the public health system.

“I certainly think that the weekend has bumped us up significantly in terms of the numbers.

Annette Scott from DDHS.

“It’s always a bit hard, we’re not apples and apples, we’re 90,000 sqm our region and compared to some other hospital and health service systems the geography is different and that presents logistic challenges to get out to some of the more rural areas.

“That being said, we’ve got them on schedule and we’ve just had a planning meeting on how we get out to our rural areas again. We’ve already been out there once, and some places twice, so we’ve just planning now how we get Pfizer out there now that we’ve got a 31 day window to store it at 2-8C which makes it much more manageable to deliver.

“Going forward, we are particularly happy to do anyone over the age of 16 who is well and happy to turn up for the vaccine.

“With the older age groups we do recommend they get the OK from their GP to get the vaccine, but we don’t want to turn people away who are eligible to get a vaccine.”

A Queensland Health spokesperson said they would continue to increase vaccination capacity across the state with additional vaccination locations and extended hours, providing eligible Queenslanders with even greater access to the COVID-19 vaccine.

To receive up-to-date information on the current wait times at the Baillie Henderson vaccine clinic, follow the Darling Downs Health Facebook page where they post regular updates.

The Covid vaccine clinic at Baillie Henderson Hospital will continue to run throughout the week offering both the Pfizer and the AstraZeneca vaccine to all Darling Downs patients who meet the vaccination requirements.

To book a vaccine, phone 13 42 68 or to register to be vaccinated online, follow this link.

For more information on the different age, job and health requirements, follow this link.