COMMONSENSE and practical measures including engaging community pharmacies in the COVID-19 vaccination (COVAX) rollout will be crucial to ending the the cycle of lockdowns seen across the country, Victorian Shadow Minister for Health, Georgie Crozier, believes.
Speaking with Pharmacy Daily the former nurse and midwife said the Victorian Government's current approach to the COVAX campaign has created questions about resources with "nurses taken out of the main system to go vaccinate".
Crozier also raised concerns about the physical and mental health impacts of Victoria's latest COVID-induced lockdown.
"If governments are telling us vaccination is a way out [of the cycle of lockdowns] then we should be concentrating on that," she said.
"There is a big question around resources, so why wouldn't you use pharmacies?
"That's an additional manpower resource that is critical, because we've got so many nurses taken out of the system - you've got 45 in Mildura isolating [after a COVID-positive patient attended Mildura Base Hospital on Sat].
"They can't get out and vaccinate... well a pharmacist could assist in that area... we need a bit of common sense and some more practical measures around this."
She noted that with COVAX supply set to grow in the coming months, "we really need as many resources to be prepared for when the younger age groups are allowed to have the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines".
Crozier added that moves to activate pharmacies to administer COVAX shots would boost access both for patients in rural and remote areas, and also cities.
"It's insane that elderly people living in Gippsland have to go to vaccination miles away or go to their GP," she said.
"They mightn't be able to get that access, so why not allow pharmacies if they've got the resources, capacity and capability to vaccinate?
"We've got to be allowing those people in regional areas to have access [to COVAX].
"In inner city areas the same situation arises for some elderly people - they can't get to the hubs, they don't want to stand in a queue... and if they can go into their pharmacy and get vaccinated then I think that's a good thing."
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