Gloomy skies and in­ter­mit­tent rain­fall yes­ter­day morn­ing was not enough to de­ter the hun­dreds of el­der­ly cit­i­zens who turned up to get their first dose of the Sinopharm and the sec­ond dose of As­traZeneca vac­cines at health cen­tres across the coun­try, as the Min­istry of Health made at­tempts to cor­rect prob­lems with vac­cine de­liv­ery which re­sult­ed in chaos last week.

How­ev­er, some peo­ple dis­re­gard­ed the min­istry’s stip­u­la­tions and ar­rived for vac­cines al­though they did not qual­i­fy. Oth­ers who had ap­point­ments dropped off el­der­ly peo­ple hours be­fore their ap­point­ments, cre­at­ing a back­up.

Al­though the El­der­ly Ex­press Ex­pe­ri­ence mod­el was crit­i­cised on so­cial me­dia af­ter videos and im­ages of the el­der­ly sit­ting and stand­ing in the rain were post­ed, North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) CEO Davlin Thomas said the vac­ci­na­tion sys­tem had “been set back on track.”

Quick process in Cou­va

At the Cou­va Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty, on­ly those with ap­point­ments were al­lowed in­side to reg­is­ter. Tents were set up and every hour, ten peo­ple were vac­ci­nat­ed. Act­ing Fa­cil­i­ty man­ag­er Ros­alie Jef­frey-Hack­ett and act­ing pri­ma­ry care physi­cian Dr Sher­ry Sant walked around the tents and spoke to the el­der­ly peo­ple who wait­ed their turn.

In an in­ter­view, Sant said she was sat­is­fied that both vac­cine roll­outs were run­ning smooth­ly at the Cou­va fa­cil­i­ty.

“We have an ap­point­ment sched­ule of peo­ple over 65 who were con­tact­ed by the SWRHA to come in for their ap­point­ments. The sec­ond dose is al­so be­ing ad­min­is­tered. We are ac­com­mo­dat­ing 15 peo­ple every hour for sec­ond dos­es,” she said.

Among those re­ceiv­ing jabs was Ram­daye Ram­nath, of Mc Bean, Cou­va.

“Ex­cel­lent treat­ment here. I am hap­py that I got through,” she said. 

Dhan­mat­ti De­larosa al­so said she ar­rived at 10 am for her vac­cine and was seen with­in 20 min­utes.

Yusuff Khan, of Phoenix Park, Cal­i­for­nia, said he felt sat­is­fied with the process.

Ear­li­er in the morn­ing, lines were seen out­side the fa­cil­i­ty but these com­prised some peo­ple who did not have ap­point­ments.

Mean­while, at the Pe­nal Rock Road Out­reach Cen­tre, there was al­so a smooth flow of peo­ple.

As­gar­ali Mo­hammed said, “It was not bad. We had to wait for a lit­tle un­til they bring the vac­cine but that was it.”

Zori­da Mo­hammed added, “Easy and cool. Very friend­ly peo­ple here. The vac­cine was smooth. Ex­cel­lent ser­vice.”

RHA of­fi­cials pleased

Al­though there were com­plaints of peo­ple hav­ing to wait in the rain at some places, while oth­ers who met the age re­quire­ment were turned away be­cause their names were not on the lists – the heads of four re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties said, by and large, the Triple E vac­ci­na­tion process was “smooth, ex­cit­ing and ex­hil­a­rat­ing.”

Hap­py to re­port that over 2,000 first and sec­ond dose vac­cines had been ad­min­is­tered yes­ter­day un­der the NCRHA’s purview, CEO Davlin Thomas said the VIP treat­ment met­ed out to the el­der­ly had been a fun ex­pe­ri­ence for both the pa­tients and at­tend­ing staff.

He said, “It is al­ways a plea­sure to serve the el­der­ly and to en­sure their com­fort. While they wait­ed, we pro­vid­ed re­fresh­ments and had ush­ers to as­sist them with the fill­ing of forms, to seat­ing them and see­ing to their needs.”

In­di­cat­ing sim­i­lar VIP treat­ment was ex­tend­ed via the Mo­bile El­der­ly Ex­press Ex­pe­ri­ence which vis­it­ed two old-aged homes, he proud­ly said, “We were able to vac­ci­nate around 80 per cent of the res­i­dents at each fa­cil­i­ty.”

Ques­tioned about those who did not have ap­point­ments yet turned up to be vac­ci­nat­ed, Thomas said, “We took their names and con­tact in­for­ma­tion to stream­line them and get them in­to the sys­tem so they can be giv­en ap­point­ments.”

He added, “There are a few who ad­mit­ted they knew they didn’t have ap­point­ments yet were try­ing a thing.”

He urged peo­ple, “to be dis­ci­plined and ex­er­cise a lit­tle pa­tience as things are be­ing done in an or­gan­ised man­ner.”

Thomas said those se­lect­ed to be vac­ci­nat­ed from June 15 were tak­en from the cur­rent data­base of peo­ple who at­tend chron­ic dis­ease clin­ics op­er­at­ed by all the re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties.

Act­ing Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the North­west Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, Sal­isha Baksh, al­so said the roll­out ran smooth­ly.

She said the NWRHA was ac­com­mo­dat­ing both the first and sec­ond dose of Sinopharm.

“We are ac­com­mo­dat­ing 10 ap­point­ments per hour through­out the day. We want to urge peo­ple to come for their ap­point­ed time. We are try­ing to man­age the crowds and we don’t want peo­ple com­ing ear­li­er than their ap­point­ed time,” Baksh said.

She not­ed that ap­point­ments are based on the ex­ist­ing clin­ic lists from health cen­tres and hos­pi­tals. 

“Peo­ple who meet the cri­te­ria who are not a pa­tient at the clin­ic, can go to the health cen­tre and sub­mit their names. We will call them and sched­ule an ap­point­ment. We have care am­bas­sadors at our fa­cil­i­ty. We are us­ing mem­bers of the Ro­tary and the Li­ons Club,” Baksh said.

She added, “To­day (yes­ter­day), there was a line of over 100 per­sons who met that cri­te­ria and we took their names and ap­point­ments and we called them to give an ap­point­ment.”

She too dis­closed that care am­bas­sadors had been as­signed to help this cadre of first-time pa­tients nav­i­gate the sys­tem.

Mean­while, shut-ins and per­sons re­sid­ing at two geri­atric homes un­der the NWRHA’s purview were al­so treat­ed to a sim­i­lar type of ser­vice.

On how this process will con­tin­ue, Baksh said, “It will be on an ap­point­ment ba­sis.”

Echo­ing the same sen­ti­ments as both Thomas and Baksh, East­ern Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (ER­HA) CEO Ronald Tsoi-a-Fatt said, “We went fine.”

He said the first and sec­ond dose vac­ci­na­tions went smooth­ly al­so, not­ing that in or­der to reach those out­side of the pub­lic health sys­tem, they will be “look­ing to part­ner with or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the T&T As­so­ci­a­tion of Re­tired Per­sons to draw from their data­base.”

How­ev­er, Tsoi-a-Fatt said for now, they are op­er­at­ing with this lat­est sys­tem which has been de­signed to pro­vide an ex­press av­enue for the el­der­ly to quick­ly and com­fort­ably ac­cess vac­cines.

But the South­west Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty is­sued an ap­peal to cit­i­zens to wait for ap­point­ments be­fore turn­ing up at health cen­tres.

 “The SWRHA notes videos and pic­tures cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia of per­sons 65 years and over out­side a few of our health fa­cil­i­ties. While we strive for an ef­fi­cient sys­tem over­lay for the vac­ci­na­tion process, these val­ued cit­i­zens were with­out con­firmed ap­point­ments,” the au­thor­i­ty said in a state­ment.

“These per­sons were so ad­vised by our at­tend­ing staff to re­solve the sit­u­a­tion. We con­tin­ue to re­mind that SWRHA will call and sched­ule ap­point­ments for per­sons 65 & over. This process avoids con­gre­ga­tion in breach of the cur­rent pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions.”

Vac­ci­na­tions are ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue to­day.