Only one in six nursing homes in the community, 50 out of 327, have completed the vaccination process for residents and staff against the coronavirus, since the campaign began on December 27, a figure that for the Nursing Home management Company Aerte de los nursing homes is “clearly insufficient” and is “a long way” from the figures projected by the Ministry of Health in their vaccination program.
“The first Sunday that vaccination began it seemed that everything was going well but disappointingly, with 30,000 doses received for the following week, barely 5,000 vaccines were administered across the whole of the Community, just 16% of those received.
“We took it for granted that the plan put into effect on Sunday would have continuity but it has not been like that, which disappoints us”.
José María Toro, president of the employers’ association of centres for the elderly in the Community, considers that if the problem were the lack of vaccines it could be understood, but it would seem to be one of organisation that in the face of “a matter of Public Health” he urges be quickly resolved so that the vaccinations can catch up in the areas where they have fallen behind, and be carried out “even at weekends”.
“It cannot be that the vaccines are still sitting in refrigerators and not in people. Health should work through weekends,” insists Toro.
The Minister of Health, Ana Barceló, said that within a week it is expected to complete the vaccination of all patients and staff in nursing homes. “Between Monday and Tuesday of next week, the first dose of vaccine will have been administered to all residents and workers in these centres for the elderly,” she stated.
Barceló also said that from next week the doses for the vaccination of medical staff at health centres will begin to be distributed, the second group to be vaccinated according to the plan established by the Ministry. “As soon as the Moderna vaccine is authorised and its distribution begins, we will begin to vaccinate health personnel in hospitals,” she added.
Barceló said that as long as vaccines are received at a rate of 30,000 per week, 10,000 will be distributed to the province of Alicante, 5,000 Castellón and 16,000 for Valencia, and that in the whole of the Community the rate of 5,000 daily vaccinations will be met from Monday to Friday, because at weekends “for now, it is not necessary to vaccinate”.
However Víctor Pedrera, the general secretary of the Community Medical Union, says that in order to vaccinate 70% of the population in the Community by this summer, as promised by Health, “136,000 weekly vaccines should be provided and administered to reach 3,520,000 people, well above the 30,000 weekly doses announced”. But, he trusts that the figure provided by the Ministry will increase as new vaccines are approved.
