Dr. April Rietdyk, general manager of community human services in Chatham-Kent, says the COVID-19 Vaccine Team is ready and waiting to administer the second batch of vaccine.
However, the question remains about exactly when Chatham-Kent will receive this second shipment from the Province.
“We were expecting vaccine early this week,” Dr. Rietdyk said during the virtual Chatham-Kent Council meeting on Monday, February 1, 2021.
“It has been delayed… yet again. I don’t have a definitive date of that next allotment. What I can confirm for Council is the moment that we notified that we will be in receipt of vaccine, we will be ready to move immediately… because we are anticipating a 24-hour notice this time of vaccine arriving in Chatham-Kent. We will then move forward and complete our long-term care homes and then move to our high risk retirement homes. Then we have to await notification from the Province of what that next group of of individuals to be immunized.”
Dr. Rietdyk said they will continue to work in partnership between Chatham-Kent Public Health, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, EMS and the rest of the partners within the Chatham-Kent Ontario Health Team.
“Really being ready at anytime to move forward with our vaccine rollout,” she said.
“With the shortage of vaccine that we are all reading about in the news, the Province changed that direction to the long-term care residents and high risk retirement home residents only… for the first rounds of vaccine.”
Dr. Rietdyk added: “We were ready to receive vaccine, really a number of weeks ago, our teams have been ready. Last Monday (January 25, 2021) we received out first allotment of vaccine. That came early morning and by 2:12 p.m. our teams were already out, mobilized and had begun immunizing within long-term care homes in Chatham-Kent. By Tuesday, we had used all of the vaccine that we had received and had immunized in three of our long-term care homes.”
Dr. Rietdyk said the team looks at the Provincial Ethical Framework for vaccination to determine where the vaccines are delivered first.
“Part of that is not only our part to assess risk, we also have to have the homes completely ready to accept us into the homes,” she said.
“That includes things like staffing on their part, having all of the resident consents ready for us to move forward and a number of other details that make it a smooth process for our teams to go in and immunize.
Dr. Rietdyk added: “They review a number of factors that are a part of the Provincial Ethical Framework for vaccine administration. Part of that really looks at risk and the risk levels that occur within all of our long-term care homes. It could be anything from the layout of the home, something very simple, it could be whether homes have a memory unit or not, it could be the size of the home.”
Dr. Rietdyk said the team “take all of these pieces” and then have conversations about it “to really look at what homes have a greater risk for residents.
“Then after that, they look at the homes readiness to receive our vaccine team to our long-term care facilities and then retirement homes. When they combine those things together, it certainly helps them look at where to go first,” she said.
“It really is a well thought out process of really looking at every single and possible factor to determine where we went first.”
Chatham Councillor Marjorie Crew said she is happy to know the team is ready mobilize when the vaccine is delivered.
“I think people want to know that we’re ready when it gets here,” Crew said.
“It’s out of your control, but you are ready and on the mark.”
For more COVID-19 vaccine information, visit the webpage created by CK Public Health, here.
