Doctors say they are increasingly frustrated over “delay and confusion” about their role in the State’s Covid vaccine plan.
Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) GP chairman Dr Denis McCauley said there was a lack of clarity on the role to be played by family doctors.
GPs want to play a role but “the longer our keenness is held on tap, the more frustration will actually develop”, he said.
Hospital Report
The Covid vaccine taskforce was expected to issue its plan to the Government last night.
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It is expected the report will recommend all healthcare workers, including GPs, nurses and pharmacists be considered in helping administer the vaccine programme, while sources indicated that recently retired qualified people could be re-employed.
Securing volumes, managing delivery of the vaccines and the timing of regulatory approval will be key milestones, with no expectation that meaningful volumes of vaccine will be administered this year, even if regulatory approval comes quicker than December 29th.
The HSE is already engaged in negotiations with GP groups over winter planning and Covid-specific issues.
An implementation group focused on the rollout was due to have its first meeting on Monday “but that appears to have stalled”, Dr McAuley said.
He raised concerns about the development of software used to track the vaccination programme. “If they are going to develop a brand new software, let’s hope there’s no “northside Luas/southside Luas” moment where they say the tracks aren’t the same”.
Pharmacy union
The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) also urged the HSE to engage with it about plans to roll out the vaccine. “The campaign can’t happen successfully unless the HSE sits down and talks to us about how it will work,” said Darragh O’Loughlin, general secretary of the IPU.
“What we don’t want is a repeat of what happened with the flu vaccine where people made appointments and when they came in there was no vaccine available because the delivery system had let them down.”
Government sources said all categories of health professionals were expected to play a role in the programme.
A spokeswoman for the HSE said it was “at a sensitive point in what have been complex negotiations” and would not comment. She said the HSE had worked well with GPs and pharmacists throughout the pandemic and their contribution had been “essential”.
“We hope that this collaboration will continue and that we will achieve a successful outcome to these deliberations.”
The expectation on Friday was that both mass vaccination centres and the GP and pharmacist network would be used, while the Government has sought assurances from drug companies manufacturing the vaccine that they were taking a no-trade-deal Brexit into account.
It comes after disappointing results for a Covid vaccine were confirmed by Sanofi and GlaxoSmithCline, which showed an insufficient immune response.
Garda security
Meanwhile, senior gardaí are in consultations with the Government’s Covid-19 taskforce on providing security for delivery of vaccines next month. The discussions follow warnings from Europol and Interpol that shipments are possible targets for organised criminals who will seek to sell them on the black market.
No final decision has been made on the extent and nature of the security. It is likely to include physical escorts and the use of intelligence sources to determine threats. It is understood no credible threat to vaccine shipments has been identified to date, although there is evidence from the US of attempts by foreign adversaries to hack into “cold-chain” systems necessary to store the vaccine.
