KINGSTON, Jamaica- 

Member of Parliament (MP) for St Andrew East Rural, Juliet Holness, is calling on the health ministry to turn all clinics across the island into fixed vaccination sites. 

Holness made this call at a vaccine blitz she organised at the St Martin De Porres Primary School, on Friday, in which over 300 residents showed up to receive the jab.

“The additional effort needs to now be pleased in every single clinics across Jamaica [to] become a vaccination site. We have written to the ministry of health to establish a fixed site at every single clinic in the constituency, even if it’s only one day per week, just to give persons the opportunity to be able to remove the excuse, in terms of the cost of travel and the difficulty of moving. That excuse would be gone because the clinic is right near you,” Holness told OBSERVER ONLINE. 

Adding that the health ministry has already established fixed vaccination sites at a few clinics across the country, Holness further stated: “So,like Harbour View, there’s one [fixed vaccination site], there is a Gordon Town Clinic close to this site, we have written and requested that it be established as a fixed site so that persons can just walk in and get vaccinated. Mavis Bank also has a clinic [but] they do not have a robust operation everyday, but Mavis and Dallas Castle in the Kintyre division are also good clinics to add to that fixed site operation.”

 “I know the resources are limited, and I mean human resources in particular, but what could happen is that it is pre-established that every Monday we will vaccinate at Dallas clinic, every Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday we’re at Gordon Town, and every Wednesday we are at Mavis Bank so the people in the community get a sense that on a Wednesday we can get our vaccination,”  the MP proposed. 

At the same time, Holness confirmed that she will not organise another vaccination blitz for her constituency because “it’s an expensive process” and if the Government turns the various clinics into fixed vaccination sites, residents living in rural areas will have better access to the jab. 

“Many of the persons in some of the rural spaces, they genuinely can’t afford it. And many of them will tell you they are not gonna leave St Peters which is 10 miles away to go down Papine and they don’t know where to go sometimes, so it’s good when it comes to them,” she said. 

“Being a rural seat is very challenging and the further away people are, the more grateful and appreciative they are for the vaccine blitz to be taken to them. I have to say I’m grateful for the blitz because the rural community, it’s hard for many of them to even afford to come to Kingston. And so, the closer the vaccine activities are to where they live, the more likely they are to come out.”

She further noted that the blitz, including the first one held in September, costs the Government millions of dollars. 

“My first set of blitz was three-million-dollars because we did three vaccination sites. This time we went a little lower, I do not believe we will end up spending more than 1.2-million-dollars for the set-up,” Holness confirmed, explaining that they were able to spend less this time around because some supplies were donated.  

“It is not cheap. We provide tents, chairs, lunch for the ministry of health, the clean-up staff and the police, water, juice [and] sanitisation supplies. So, it does add up especially because we have to also transport persons who can’t afford it to the blitz [location]… it is in fact very costly, so I am really hoping that the ministry of health will get all the clinics across Jamaica up to a place where they can now dispense the vaccines at the clinic because it definitely would be cheaper for them to do so,” Holness explained. 

However, pleased with the turnout for the series of blitz held between Thursday and Friday across her constituency, Holness said, “We will have by the end of the day [on Friday] vaccinated over 300 persons and looking at it, it looks like we are closer to 400. This week so far each of the sites have had more than 300 persons turning out to be vaccinated. Three hundred and forty seven in Mavis Bank, 319 I think the number was for Bull Bay… and the numbers looking very good so far for Gordon Town…[I’m] absolutely pleased with the turn out.” 

-Candice Haughton