💉🌇During the outbreak at #HamOnt's Rebecca Towers, 28 residents had access to shots onsite. Now, tenants and experts are calling for more vaccination options in the city, be they in-unit vaccinations or pop-up clinics in high-risk areas. [1/12] 
https://twitter.com/TheAgenda/status/1404850820005367813
For Rebecca Towers tenant Samira Mokenan, getting vaccinated in her unit was huge. As her husband works during the day and her youngest is only one, Mokenan was worried about the logistics of getting to a mass vaccination clinic until she was able to get her shot at home. [2/12]
Public health reserves the approach for homebound people, saying it’s resource-intensive. But @RebeccaTenants, which advocates for people living in the building, says the city should offer the service to all residents of apartment buildings: bit.ly/3xuo5mV [3/12]
While HPHS facilitates onsite vaccinations in certain circumstances, officials have repeatedly said they’re hard to organize. At a May 17 media briefing, Medical Officer of Health Dr. Elizabeth Richardson said they can't take place in every building or each neighbourhood. [4/12]
An HPHS spokesperson writes mobile pop-up vaccination clinics administer upwards of 120 to 150 doses/day; by contrast, a large-scale vaccination clinic, such as the FirstOntario Centre, has the capacity to administer up to 3,000 doses/day. [5/12]
That, they say, makes large clinics most effective for vaccinating large numbers.
@RebeccaTenants organizer Emily Power notes about 85,000 Hamiltonians live in apt. buildings taller than five stories, many in areas with low rates of vaccination:
bit.ly/3gphp3F [6/12]
@RebeccaTenants organizer Emily Power notes about 85,000 Hamiltonians live in apt. buildings taller than five stories, many in areas with low rates of vaccination:
bit.ly/3gphp3F [6/12]
“There's an urgent need for Hamilton public health to change their approach to the vaccination strategy and to bring the vaccine to the doors of the people who need it most,” she says. This could even mean more pop-up clinics in high risk areas, she adds. [7/12]
The HPHS spokesperson notes that pop-up clinics in rural areas and areas with low vaccination coverage are a part of its strategy. An example is an upcoming clinic in Stoney Creek: bit.ly/3iKjwRk HPHS says it'll work to meet unmet needs as it identifies them. [8/12]
Dr. @TimOsh99 of @macdeptmed and @HAMSMArTeam says he thinks what the Rebecca Towers committee is calling for makes sense “from a public-health point of view in terms of getting the right populations vaccinated as quickly as possible.” [9/12]
O'Shea says at this point in the pandemic, it makes sense to prioritize more "decentralized" healthcare and take vaccines to people "in order to ensure that especially the highest-risk groups have easy and equitable access to the vaccines.” [10/12]
Dr. @PhamTia of @UofTMedicine agrees that public-health units need to think outside the box when it comes to vaccinating harder-to-reach community members. She says mass vax clinics don't work as well for marginalized people as they do for affluent, educated people. [11/12]
“I think you just have to bring the things to the people if you want to get them vaccinated. Different populations require different approaches, and some of that needs to be much more patient-centred,” Pham says.
Read the full article here: tvo.org/article/bring-… [12/12]
Read the full article here: tvo.org/article/bring-… [12/12]
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