STATE and Territory Governments need to follow Victoria's lead in setting aside COVID-19 vaccines for frontline workers including pharmacy staff and other health professionals, Pharmaceutical Society of Australia NSW Branch President, Chelsea Felkai, believes.
With many pharmacists and pharmacy assistants across the country yet to be vaccinated, Felkai said there needed to be proactive steps taken to immunise people on the frontline.
"Victoria has created 10,000 new spots for healthcare and frontline workers to be prioritised to be bumped up the queue to get vaccinated with the Pfizer shot first," she said.
"That includes pharmacists and their staff.
"It's happening in Victoria, but not anywhere else - it's a great idea and it should've happened everywhere."
Speaking with Pharmacy Daily, Felkai also advocated for some innovative thinking when it comes to helping healthcare workers in the three Sydney Local Government Areas where essential workers are required to get COVID tests every three days.
"It's not easy to scale it up overnight, but we've had this outbreak for a few weeks now, so I'd like to see a little more proactivity coming into this mix, rather than reactivity," she said.
"All those essential workers coming out of Fairfield should be prioritised - they should have their own line.
"There just needs to be a little more thought in some of the processes.
"We're living in a really reactive world and I know we've had to make decisions with little information on short notice, but with things like this what is the rate limiting step?
"Is it that there's not enough testing kits that get delivered each day?
"Is it that they don't have enough workers to physically administer the tests?"
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