THUNDER BAY – When Superior North EMS paramedics walked off the elevator on the eighth floor of the PR Cook Apartments, ready to vaccinate the residents, they were greeted with a standing ovation.
It was a little overwhelming, said paramedic Shane Muir, heading the organization’s COVID-19 response, which for now is taking them into seniors’ homes across Thunder Bay, where the response has been fantastic.
“That was something special for us and we’re really looking forward to doing more of it,” Muir said on Tuesday, outside of Chartwell Hilldale Retirement Residence, where at this point they’d already vaccinated 54 residents.
“The buy-in is unbelievable and they are just excited to get the vaccine. It just helps them protect themselves. It will (negate) any spread of the virus in these buildings and we’re really looking forward to ending this pandemic with the vaccine.”
Muir said the current vaccination effort should take another two weeks, the goal to provide the Pfizer vaccine to as many people living in retirement homes and congregate settings as possible. Meanwhile the Thunder Bay District Health Unit this week plans to vaccinate seniors 85 and older at a three-day clinic at the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition’s Coliseum building.
Spots for that clinic filled up in little more than an hour.
Muir said it’s been an immense task setting up mobile clinics.
“It started two weeks ago and we’ve been planning since. There’s a lot of logistics behind the Pfizer vaccine. As we know, it needs to come out of the freezer at -70 C. We can only open the freezer one time in the morning, so we all have to co-ordinate our vaccine pick-ups in the morning,” Muir said.
“And then we have to transport it in a frozen state to the facility and it takes about three hours of reconstitution and drawing up the medication before we can actually start getting it into arms.”
Muir said he’s hopeful that anyone who might be on the fence about getting the vaccine will be swayed by the success of the mobile clinics and the excitement senior home residents are displaying in their eagerness to get the two-dose vaccine.
This is the fourth senior’s home they’ve visited.
“We’re confident we’re going to hit them all,” Muir said.
He added once this phase is complete, paramedics, who are also still swab testing at facilities like Hilldale, which is currently in a COVID-19 outbreak, will pivot to delivering vaccines elsewhere. Muir said if needed they’ll even help staff the clinic at the CLE.
