Vulnerable Kiwis in limbo as vaccinations move on

‘‘It’s vital that DHBs ensure that group three people have been notified before they open it up to group four.’’ Jo Millar Grey Power

In three days New Zealand ramps up its Covid-19 vaccination programme, but is the medical sector ready to deliver or should we hit the pause button so more of our most vulnerable can be jabbed first? Virginia Fallon reports.

With 700,000 future bookings already in the system from vulnerable New Zealanders still waiting for their Covid jabs, the Government is pushing ahead with plans to vaccinate the general population.

Only 20 per cent of group three – over-65s and those with underlying health conditions – have had their first dose of the vaccine, but from Wednesday, booking systems open for the first tranche of group four: those aged over 60.

While some are criticising the move, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says there’s been no reason to delay the rollout.

‘‘The important thing to remember is that we’ll have enough vaccine for everybody in New Zealand to get the vaccine by the end of the year.’’

Ken Stokes is in group three and suspects that if he hadn’t driven an hour to a neighbouring district health board he’d still be waiting for his vaccination.

The 69-year-old Hamiltonian has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, atrial fibrillation and high blood pressure, and says he waited three weeks after registering for the vaccine before calling Waikato DHB. Told his appointment would be months away, Stokes then called Lakes DHB where he used to be registered, and was slotted in almost immediately due to a cancellation.

He said the experience was similar to what he’s heard others have faced, and believed the next group should be delayed until the previous groups were vaccinated. In the meantime he worried about those older people unwilling or unable to advocate for themselves.

‘‘For gosh sakes contact them and find out what’s going on, and if you have the chance to move to a different DHB, do it.’’

Grey Power national health advisory group chairperson Jo Millar said many older people in group three were still waiting to be contacted and were worried they might miss out.

‘‘It’s vital that DHBs ensure that group three people have been notified before they open it up to group four.’’

On Friday, Hipkins said he was ‘‘increasingly confident we have the infrastructure in place to manage the largest vaccination programme New Zealand has ever undertaken.’’

New Zealanders can expect to see the vaccination campaign ‘‘really ramping up’’ from now on.

‘‘We’ve been taking the time to build capacity – both in the arrival of the vaccine doses from Pfizer, and our ability to work with primary care in particular to deliver the larger daily totals we’re looking at.

‘‘In the weeks ahead, we’ve set some clear goals. This week, it’s to administer more than 200,000 doses, and in the coming weeks, it’s to ramp up to between 250,000 to 300,000 doses a week as we move towards getting to that daily average sitting around 50,000 doses a day.’’

The Ministry of Health’s group manager Covid-19 vaccination operations, Astrid Koornneef, said all DHBs were contacting people in group three to book appointments by the end of July.

The focus remained on vaccinating those in group three, which comprises 1.7 million people, as well as remaining people in group two.

A new 0800 number would be launched this weekend for those in group three to ring if they haven’t yet heard about their booking invitation.

‘‘Given group three is such a large group, we’re encouraging people to be patient – there will be enough vaccine for everyone.’’

Medical director of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners Dr Bryan Betty doesn’t believe the rollout should be delayed, but says it could have been done better.

General practices have been excluded from administering the vaccine until now, and utilising them will make a difference in avoiding the problems many New Zealanders have experienced in getting their shots.

‘‘General practice would have been really efficient in targeting those group twos and threes – they’ve got all the lists, they know who all their patients are, they target for things like flu vax throughout the year. My hope is the more that

general practice becomes involved the more we start to be effective at what needs to happen for group three and then group four.’’

The most important thing now was to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible.

‘‘The clock is ticking on this, what we’re seeing in Australia is of real concern with the delta variant. We’ve dodged bullets up until this point in terms of possible breaches at the border, and we’ve been incredibly lucky with that.’’

New Zealand Medical Association chairman Dr Alistair Humphrey said as long as the vaccination supply was available GPs would be able to get the job done.

‘‘Let’s face it, vaccination is bread and butter work for GPs. Had GPs been given a bit more credibility here, treated with a bit more respect and given the opportunity to organise this, a lot of the problems they’re now facing would have been anticipated.’’