POLITICAL hesitancy is behind delays in activating community pharmacies to administer COVID-19 vaccinations (COVAX) Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, NSW Branch President, Chelsea Felkai, believes.
Welcoming NSW Health's decision to give the green-light for selected pharmacies to join the vaccination campaign, Felkai told Pharmacy Daily that there had been "huge hesitancy" about the move amongst public health officials in the State.
Felkai said the latest COVID outbreak in Sydney had forced the State Government into activating pharmacies.
"I was starting to get really frustrated that there was no good reason [why pharmacies were not involved]," she said.
"There was supply and there was this huge hesitancy from out Chief Health Officer, Dr Kerry Chant, and I tried to pin her down to tell us why that hesitancy exists.
"It don't think it's gone away, it's just the situation has pressured her to the point where she had to make that decision.
"I just want to do everything in my power to ensure the rollout within NSW goes as smoothly as possible to prove that this is absolutely managable within community pharmacy and there was no need to wait that long to get it there."
Felkai added that the Australia COVAX effort had been hampered by indecision, mixed messages from different levels of government and concerns over the risk of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine.
"We have wasted the last six months with bickering that happens between Federal and State Governments," she said.
"Now that the outbreak's happening it's driven them into action, but now it really is a race against time.
"We'll look back and think we wasted six months of being in a COVID-free world when we could've been out there really pushing the vaccinations, but we were taking a risk adverse way because of fearmongering around TTS clots."
Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Government has announced that it has activated seven community pharmacies in Melbourne's outer suburbs to administer the AstraZeneca vaccine, following a request from the Victorian Department of Health.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 19 Jul 21
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