Tara Murray
Brimbank’s aged care residents will have to wait at least one more week before receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, after all of the municipality’s aged care homes were left out of the week one vaccination schedule.
The federal government last week announced that aged care residents in 190 towns and suburbs across the country would begin receiving the Pfizer vaccine as of yesterday.
Health professionals will visit aged care facilities to vaccinate some of the community’s most vulnerable people first.
Some of the chosen locations for aged care vaccinations during the first week includes places that have no recorded cases of the virus.
Brimbank had the second highest number of COVID-19 infections in Victoria, according to Victoria Department of Health data.
Gorton MP Brendan O’Connor said he was disappointed that his electorate was not included in the initial rollout.
“The Morrison government needs to answer why my electorate of Gorton, which had some of the highest coronavirus infections numbers in the country, has been forgotten when it comes to the first locations of the vaccine rollout?” he said.
Mr O’Connor raised concerns about the vaccine’s rollout in federal Parliament last week.
“The vaccine rollout should already be well underway, instead there are a lot of unanswered questions regarding supply and delivery,” he said.
“The residents of Melton and Brimbank need to be assured they’ll have access to the vaccine. We know that Scott Morrison is always about the announcement, not about the delivery.”
Australia’s chief medical officer Brendan Murphy last week said deciding which aged care homes would receive the vaccine first was a “complex logistic exercise”.
“We do not have community transmission, so there is no burning platform. It’s perfectly safe to take four of five weeks to vaccinate all of the aged care residents,” he said.
“And the logistics teams have planned a very detailed logistics plan along with the distribution providers, along with surge workforce providers to get distribution across the country, and a schedule where they can move from one site to another.”
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said vaccinations would be done in “clusters defined geographically to make sure that we have the most effective distribution and that also preserves sanctity of the Pfizer process”.
Mr Hunt said a vaccination hub would be set up at Sunshine Hospital.
Brimbank Mayor Ranka Rasic said Brimbank welcomes the commencement of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
“We understand the vaccine rollout is a complex logistical process coordinated at a national level and of course are keen to see Brimbank sites included as soon as logistically possible.”
