“Decision-making mistakes” to exclude GP from geriatric care vaccination

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“To be honest, it’s very surprising that we are in this position. We had enough time to get vaccinated.”

Dr. Khayyama Altaf, Chair of RACGP Specific Interests Aged Care, was very clear when talking about the current situation in Victoria: newsGP..

The state COVID outbreak has resulted in four cases related to elderly care, including two workers, a resident and a worker’s son, and several facilities have been closed.

There are many people in the community in the unfolding scene. Of the 910 COVID deaths in Australia, 685 occurred in geriatric care facilities, Victoria alone 655.

Dr. Altaf, who has more than 100 elderly care patients across Melbourne, is one of the GPs who is refraining from deploying the vaccine and believes that the current predicament has been avoided.

“There was excessive reliance on private vaccination providers, which led to delay restrictions and their availability for vaccination,” he said.

“GP is excluded … and I think it’s a decision mistake, and it’s now clear.”

A Senate estimation session on Tuesday revealed that 44,333 elderly caregivers in Victoria had been vaccinated at least once, and only 25,319 were fully vaccinated. Nationally, 153,641 of the approximately 183,000 elderly care residents receive at least one dose.

Dr. Sachin Patel, founder of the Elderly Care GP Service, which cares for patients at 100 facilities in Melbourne, said the GP predicted a shortage of proposed models, but their concerns were “ignored.” ..

“It was foretold that this would happen, and the GP was fired throughout the process,” he said. newsGP..

“Initially there was this huge fanfare-” we have this private service to care for the elderly “-it was as if the GP didn’t exist.

“When vaccination is needed for this population, why set aside the basic people to provide medical care and vaccination to this population? It doesn’t make sense.”

The Senate estimates that less than 10% of the 366,000 elderly care workers nationwide are fully vaccinated, with only 32,833 receiving both.

However, the exact number remains unknown, as elderly care providers are not required to provide the government with information on staff vaccinations.

Dr. Altaf says that many people working in elderly care are excluded from the reach program.

“Elderly care staff are not having a designated supply, but are basically left to see if there was any remaining vaccination at the end of the day,” he said. ..

“Even after waiting for the assigned date, so many people couldn’t access it at all.”

Others who were able to secure the first dose had to wait for the second dose.

“We have this promise that” all staff and all facilities will be completed. ” Within a few weeks, it will turn into “Oh, we’re not staffing right now,” Dr. Patel said.

“So there was a situation where the staff was half vaccinated. [and] Then they got stuck.

“It undermines the trust of senior care staff and I’m sure it affected my intake. It’s really shocking.

“In general practice, we could have done this within 10 weeks … with a little support and some confidence.”

“There is no doubt that the current situation could have been avoided if the GP had been more involved in elderly care vaccination,” said Dr. Khayyam Altaf.

Delayed deployment also affected the management of influenza vaccination.

Dr. Patel said many GPs will be able to provide dates for COVID vaccinations to ensure that many GPs adhere to the initial recommendation of waiting two weeks between influenza and the COVID vaccine. He said he was forced to postpone until. It was even more affected when residents began to be offered AstraZeneca instead of Pfizer.

“This wasn’t told to the general practitioner at all,” said Dr. Patel.

“In reality, this is a policy that has just been created in progress, without explicit strategic thinking, and the GP, which is the most valuable part of the jigsaw puzzle in terms of ensuring good results, is completely aside. It is placed.

“So the suffering people will be residents and staff. It’s just unacceptable and someone has to take responsibility for it.”

To ensure the protection of residents and staff, the Australian Chief Health Commission is currently considering whether to require workers in this sector to be vaccinated with COVID.

Meanwhile, it was Announced on Tuesday Victoria will conduct a five-day vaccination blitzkrieg for workers in private geriatric care facilities and workers with housing disabilities. Starting Wednesday, June 2, workers will have priority access to walk-in vaccination hubs around Victoria from 9 am to 4 pm.

However, Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA) requires vaccination at work for easy access.

Despite growing anxiety about the outbreak, Federal Elderly Care Services Minister Richard Colbeck told the Senate Estimate Committee that the government was “comfortable” at the pace of deployment.

“Everyone would have wanted to do it sooner, but logically it did as soon as possible. All facilities, except some in some states, received the first dose,” he said. Told.

Dr. Altaf disagreed and maintaining it could have been done much faster.

“It’s daunting. With GP involved, we could have first vaccinated the most important staff and residents of the geriatric care facility,” he said.

“We could have avoided this crisis, I have no doubt about it.”

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