THE Clare Covid-19 vaccination centre is relocating on a temporary basis from from Treacy’s West County Hotel to the grounds of Ennis Hospital.
Vaccinations at the former outpatients department in the hospital grounds will commence on this Saturday, November 20th and it is expected the centre will move back to the West County in early 2022.
The planned move comes as the number of vaccine doses delivered by the UL Hospitals Group vaccination teams this week surpassed 400,000. This is in addition to the work undertaken by colleagues in HSE MidWest Community Healthcare, GPs, pharmacists and the National Ambulance Service.
The current national requirement is that Covid-19 vaccination centres will remain in operation until at least the end of March 2022. The UHL hospital group anticipate that the new centre at Ennis Hospital has the capacity to comfortably meet the demand for booster doses as the national vaccination campaign enters a new phase.
In recent days the vaccination team have started delivering booster vaccines to fully vaccinated people in the 60-69 age group and healthcare workers. They continue to deliver additional doses to immunocompromised/ immunosuppressed patients in line with the national guidance and also to offer both Dose 1 and Dose 2 vaccinations at walk-in clinics who have yet to take up a vaccine.
The new Covid-19 vaccination centre at Ennis Hospital will open on Saturday, November 20th. Parking availability on the grounds of Ennis Hospital has improved since the relocation of the outpatients department to the Kilrush Road. Disabled parking is available at Ennis Hospital.
Patricia O’Gorman, Clinical Lead for the Area Vaccination Centres in the MidWest, said: “Our vaccination teams have to date delivered over 400,000 doses as part of this historic vaccination campaign. As society and the economy have reopened, we have had to secure a temporary new location for our Ennis centre with the agreement of our partners. We are grateful to the West County Hotel for their support over the course of vaccination campaign”.
Currently, people aged 60-69 in the Mid-West are being notified by text message about their booster appointments. The National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) has recommended a minimum time period of six months to have elapsed since the date of Dose 2 delivery before the booster dose is offered.
Booster dose appointments, scheduled from the information on the vaccination register, will be offered first to people with the earliest Dose 2 delivery dates. Regardless of which COVID-19 vaccine course people had previously, they will be offered a single booster dose of mRNA vaccine.
