East Coast vaccine roll-out starts on Monday

Vials of the Pfizer-BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine sit on a table at a vaccine clinic in a medical centre in Anchorage, Alaska, in December of last year. Kiwis will be getting doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine too (although obviously not this particular batch photographed here). Anchorage Daily News December 2000 file picture via AP

The region's Covid-19 vaccination programme will “stretch outside the national guidance” set by the Government and rural residents will not be disadvantaged, Hauora Tairawhiti board chairwoman Kim Ngarimu says.

The vaccination of front-line health workers started “in earnest” on Monday, a board spokeswoman told The Gisborne Herald this morning.

The vaccination centre is operating six days a week, including one late night.

Border workers, whose vaccination programme started on February 27, and health workers have been getting immunised at one common site, which the health board did not wish to name.

But the first mobile vaccination station starts operating at Te Puia Springs Hospital on Monday. Te Puia Springs Hospital patients will be among those immunised.

Ms Ngarimu said people who were at a distance from health services would not be distant from the vaccination programme.

Vaccinations would start on the Coast and “inland to the west”, said Ms Ngarimu, who was speaking at the launch of Toitu Tairawhiti's Covid vaccination iwi communications this morning.

“We are going to vaccinate the community. We are not going to turn people away.”

If someone brought their nana “we won't say ‘go away, come back in a month',” she said.

“We are going to the community. We start on the Coast on Monday.”

Hauora Tairawhiti had also extended the vaccine priority programme from front-line health workers to all health workers because it was efficient to operate in that manner.

Covid-19 vaccination programme manager Sandi French said the Hauora Tairawhiti process was to invite groups of people to complete a consent form and return it.

“Those who return the form are contacted and given a time to be vaccinated.

“Employers will follow up to make sure all their staff have the opportunity to be vaccinated.

“After our healthcare workforce is vaccinated, our vaccination teams will concentrate on vulnerable people, including the elderly, rest home residents and those with long-term health conditions.

“Vaccinations will be given at the Vaccination Centre and for those who can't come to the centre in the community.”

Vaccinations for vulnerable people are expected to start in May.

Hauora Tairawhiti had given 779 Covid-19 vaccinations up to Wednesday, including 253 people receiving their second dose.