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Local LTC home residents, front-line workers roll up sleeves for 'critical' vaccines

'It gave me a sense of peace knowing that I do have some protection now,' says Orillia PSW; To date, 11,189 doses have been administered in the region
COVID-19 vaccine 2 2020-12-22
Lori Black, a Barrie PSW, was the first person in Simcoe County to receive a COVID-19 vaccination. File Photo

With two vaccines approved and the first phase of Ontario’s vaccination rollout underway, front-line workers in the Orillia area have been receiving ‘the jab.’

As per the province’s vaccine rollout plan, the limited doses currently available are being doled out to hospital staff, long-term care staff and their residents, and essential caregivers.

Here’s a look at how many people in the area have been vaccinated so far, how the rollout is going, and what the vaccine means for those working on the front line.

Simcoe-Muskoka District Health Unit

As of Friday afternoon, 11,189 doses of the Pfizer vaccine have been administered in the region, according to the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU) website. Of that number, over 420 of those doses were the booster shot for recipients. The booster is administered three weeks after the initial shot to provide full immunization.

The SMDHU, in partnership with Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie, have been vaccinating people at its clinic in Barrie. This clinic has been the second-highest provider of vaccinations in the province since the rollout began, says the health unit's medical officer of health, Dr. Charles Gardner.

Providing vaccines to long-term care residents was top of the priority list this week, according to Dr. Gardner. Fifty one per cent of long-term care residents in Simcoe-Muskoka have now received their first dose of the vaccine.

“This is really critical because this is the population that is at greatest risk of outbreaks, serious illness and death, so by vaccinating these people we’re going a long way to reduce the deaths from COVID-19 in Simcoe-Muskoka,” Gardner said during his weekly media briefing.

The plan for next week, according to Dr. Gardner, is to move to retirement homes, vaccinating residents there in the same fashion as long-term care homes.

Once priority groups have been vaccinated, the community at large will be eligible for the vaccine. The province’s goal is to vaccinate all eligible Ontarians who want the shot by August of this year, and Dr. Gardner says the SMDHU has “every intention of working with that timeline.”

“In the end, the vaccine is going to be absolutely critical to bring (the pandemic) under control and allow us healthier, safer, more normal lives,” said Dr. Gardner.

Orillia Soldiers' Memorial Hospital

The first Orillia Soldiers' Memorial Hospital (OSMH) staff received initial doses of the vaccine on Dec. 22 at the Barrie immunization clinic. To date, about 60 per cent of staff at the hospital have received the vaccine, says OSMH’s president and CEO, Carmine Stumpo.

Staff caring for patients who are most at-risk and for patients who are most likely to have COVID-19 were offered the vaccine first, says Stumpo. Next came staff who had direct contact with any patients.

The vaccine is voluntary and staff are encouraged to talk to their doctors before signing up for the shot if they have allergies, are pregnant, or are immuno-compromised.

“We’ve worked very hard at answering questions and supporting staff in making their choice and the uptake with this first round of vaccinations has been very, very strong,” says Stumpo.

The goal is to eventually vaccinate all hospital staff, though it’s tough to predict when that date will be, says Stumpo.

The hospital was given access to a certain number of doses in this first-round vaccination process, which ended on Jan. 10. With the focus shifted to vaccinating in long-term care and retirement homes, the remaining 40 per cent of hospital staff will be eligible after vaccination has been carried out in those volatile settings.

And while the vaccine provides hope for the future, handwashing, social distancing and mask wearing must still be practised, stressed Stumpo - especially as the hospital works through what he calls “a very difficult time in healthcare.”

“People need to recognize the vaccine is one element,” says Stumpo. “The vaccine is an additional layer of protection and a really important one, but in-hospital we’re still following all the strictest advice on infection prevention and control and we will do so for some time.”

Long-term care homes

As of Jan. 8, 88 staff members at Trillium Manor, a long term care home operated by Simcoe County currently in outbreak status, had received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. An additional 29 staff members and 100 residents will receive their first doses today (Jan. 16) according to the general manager of Health and Emergency Services for Simcoe County, Jane Sinclair.

While the choice to get vaccinated is left up to the individual resident or staff member, the county has seen “significant uptake (of the vaccine) and continue to book vaccinations as appointments become available.”

Orillia's Brenda Givens, a personal support worker at Leacock Care Centre, says both the shot and the process of getting vaccinated were pretty painless. The only side effect was a sore arm, just like with the regular flu shot, she said.

As for the Barrie vaccination centre itself, Givens says she was impressed with its efficiency.

“There were a lot of people coming and going from the clinic, but we were all spaced out and everyone’s got masks. It was very well organized,” says Givens.

Givens says residents - who got the shot on Friday - and staff at Leacock Care Centre look forward to being immunized against the virus.

“After I had the vaccine done, I really did feel so much better going into work,” says Givens. “It gave me a sense of peace knowing that I do have some protection now.”

Community nurses ineligible for vaccine

When the Ontario government mandated last April that nurses could only work in one care home to limit the spread of COVID-19, nurses like Katie Taylor, working two jobs in their field, had to pick one.

Taylor would usually work as a visiting nurse providing in-home care, as well as at Trillium Manor, but now she only works at the long-term care home.

Visiting nurses provide care from “newborn to end of life” and everything in between according to Taylor. Dialysis, IV antibiotics, post-operative care, palliative care and the laundry list of other services visiting nurses provide to patients at home helps drastically reduce the number of patients visiting hospitals, where numbers of available beds are shrinking.

“If there were no community nurses ... the hospitals would be out of control,” says Taylor.

Given the need for these nurses, Taylor was shocked to find out her friends and colleagues still working as visiting nurses aren’t yet eligible to receive the vaccine.

If she were working as a visiting nurse right now, Taylor says she’d be going into 12-16 homes per day which may mean interacting with multiple residents who interact with the community regularly.

“I come into work and I know that none of these residents have left. I have to risk the fact that all the other staff I’m working with don’t live here or the essential caregivers who come in don’t live here, but I’m not going into stranger’s homes,” says Taylor.

Dr. Gardner said he’s received many questions about health-care workers who don’t work in long-term care facilities or hospitals who want the vaccine.

Demand is currently higher than the number of vaccines available, Gardner said. He says he understands the need for all people in high priority groups to be vaccinated, which SMDHU is preparing to do “once there’s enough of it and once we’ve finished with protecting the residents and staff at long term care facilities and the retirement homes, and ensuring there’s enough vaccine for other healthcare workers in hospitals as well who would want it.”

Anna Miller, a senior communications advisor from the Ontario Ministry of Health, said "early doses" are available for:

  • Residents, staff, essential caregivers (including family caregivers) and other employees in congregate living settings for seniors
  • Health-care workers, including hospital employees, staff who work or study in hospitals and health care personnel
  • Adults in First Nations, Métis and Inuit populations
  • Adult recipients of chronic home health care.

"As the rollout of vaccinations continue, Ontario has mapped out the next steps for transitioning into Phase Two and an approach for identifying the next groups to receive the vaccination starting in March 2021," said Miller. 

This group includes:

  • Older adults, beginning with those 80 years of age and older and decreasing in five-year increments over the course of the vaccine rollout;
  • Individuals living and working in other high-risk congregate settings;
  • Frontline essential workers (e.g., first responders, education workers, food processing industry);
  • Individuals with high-risk chronic conditions and their caregivers; and
  • Other populations and communities facing barriers related to the determinants of health across Ontario who are at greater COVID-19 risk.

While noting demand for the vaccine has exceeded available supply, she said prioritization among health care workers was required.

"Sectors and settings are prioritized based on risk of exposure and the risk of patient populations served," she said. "An ethical framework and health equity lens is applied to all prioritization decision-making."  

Where to get updated vaccination information

Dr. Gardner’s COVID-19 updates for Simcoe-Muskoka are held weekly on the SMDHU Facebook page in the form of live streams. Past updates can be found on the Facebook page or on the SMDHU’s YouTube channel under the playlist titled COVID-19.

The SMDHU Facebook page additionally posts new information about the vaccine and COVID-19 in the region at large as updates occur.

Information on Simcoe-Muskoka’s vaccine rollout can be found here on the SMDHU website, and daily vaccination and COVID-19 case statistics for Simcoe-Muskoka are available here.

Abby Hughes, a lifelong Orillia resident and Orillia Secondary School graduate, is a second-year Ryerson University journalism student interning with OrilliaMatters.


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