Covid-19 vaccinations get under way for over-80s in Moray
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HOPE won through this week after nearly a year of pandemic restrictions as patients aged over 80 at four Moray GP practices began receiving their Covid-19 vaccinations.
In the biggest NHS immunisation programme ever undertaken, more than 750 GP practices across Scotland and an army of more than 3000 trained vaccinators have mobilised to help protect the people.
Among them this week, the region's most elderly patients at Ardach Health Centre in Buckie, Fochabers Medical Practice, Moray Coast Medical Practice in Lossiemouth and Maryhill Health Centre in Elgin were offered their first dose of the two-shot vaccine.
After care home residents, the age group is next in line in the vaccination priority list, along with frontline health and social care staff. These groups are all expected to have had their first dose by the start of February.
Residents in all Moray's care homes have now been offered their first dose and the vaccination of public-facing health staff and social care workers was continuing "at pace", said Health and Social Care Moray.
Sarah Corkish, practice manager at Fochabers Medical Practice, said they had just days to prepare for their operation to deliver the jab to their 283 over-80s patients. Twelve staff were on hand at its clinic at Fochabers Public Institute, from 9am-4.30pm on Wednesday.
After a busy round of morning vaccinations, Sarah said: "Some of these patients are housebound so the community team will be going to them.
"I think we've probably had 95 per cent uptake, if not more.
"Everyone has been given a 15-minute appointment. We have breakout areas because the patients have to sit, if they're driving, for 15 minutes afterwards.
"If they're walking, we ask them to sit down for five minutes afterwards just to make sure they're not wobbly."
She added: "The organisation was a huge amount of work. The whole practice, bar one GP, is over here today. We have admin staff and nursing staff, and we have other nursing staff here doing ongoing training because there is a lot of paperwork.
"The patients are asked a number of general health questions, hence the 15-minute appointment. It's not like the flu jab where you come in, get the jab and you're out the door.
"The most worrying part was getting lots of people in here at any given time because we had to make sure they were socially distanced coming in."
Sarah issued special thanks to Institute caretaker Samantha Noble, who "helped tremendously" by getting the hall ready.
She added: "People are hugely relieved to be getting the vaccine. The people I've spoken to wanted it yesterday. They want the vaccine, they don't care whether it's the Pfizer one or the Oxford/AstraZeneca one.
"It's been a huge positive for them and it's been a huge morale-booster for Fochabers.
"They've been asked to shield and stay in and be protected for 10 months, so this for them, it's amazing and well deserved.
"The turnout has been brilliant and they've been in such good spirits."
Grant Redford, an advanced nurse practitioner at the Fochabers centre, said: "Patients are completely engaged and the day is going smoothly, so there's no reason why the rollout for various age groups shouldn't go along the same lines.
"The side-effects are pretty well documented: a bit of redness or inflammation potentially, a little bit of a fever sometimes but these should go within 48 hours.
"The patients are welcoming the jab with open arms.
"For a lot of people, because they've been self-isolating for almost a whole year, getting out today has been good for them mentally. It's all socially distanced but they're seeing folk they probably haven't seen for quite a while. That in itself is a positive.
"I think you'll find any person in the NHS is really keen to get this done so we can get back to some sort of normality."
Patient Mary Dempster (83), from Mosstodloch, was relieved to get her vaccine. She said: "It's a killer, this virus.
"I was just always waiting to hear what was going to happen, how to go about getting the injection. They phoned on Friday to ask if I wanted it and I said 'certainly'.
"If the nurse hadn't said to me 'right, that's you', I wouldn't even have known I'd had a jab."
Another, Ronnie Cameron (82), from Fochabers, said: "It's a wee bit of a relief. It's going the right direction, especially with the rules on takeaways and 'click and collect' tightening up again."
Most people are likely to receive the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, although vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have been approved for UK use.
Evidence suggests that the first dose offers protection for up to 12 weeks. The second dose will be delivered between three to 12 weeks after the first.
An NHS Grampian spokesperson said: "We have started vaccinating members of our over-80 population with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.
"Clinics will expand over the coming days and weeks in line with supply into Grampian.
"We know interest in getting vaccinated is very high.
"We would stress again that we will be in touch with people directly to offer them vaccine appointments. Please do not contact your GP practice or other healthcare professionals."
As of Thursday, January 14, some 208,207 people in Scotland had received their first dose of the vaccination and 3,190 had received their second dose.
