The Saolta Hospital group has denied that non-frontline staff received vaccines, or that employees on leave had been asked into the hospital to get the jab.
Sligo-Leitrim TD Martin Kenny raised concerns after hearing reports that administration staff had received vaccine doses ahead of some frontline workers and healthcare staff.
In a statement to Shannonside Northern sound, the hospital says 680 vaccines were administered to staff following the start of the vaccination programme on January 6th.
Jabs were provided for people aged 65 years and older who are residents of long-term care facilities (likely to include all staff and residents on site) and frontline healthcare workers
The hospital has also confirmed that support staff and clerical staff working in ICU, the Emergency Department, Acute Assessment Unit and the COVID 19 wards also received vaccines.
The full statement from the hospital is below:
Response:
The roll out of the vaccination programme is based on the Government’s provisional vaccine allocation groups published on December 8.
To date vaccine provision has been directed towards the top two tiers of the allocation groups:
· People aged 65 years and older who are residents of long-term care facilities (likely to include all staff and residents on site)
· Frontline healthcare workers
When we complete the vaccination of residential care facilities, vaccine supplies will be directed to frontline healthcare workers.
The COVID-19 vaccination programme for staff in Sligo University Hospital commenced on Wednesday 06 January and over 680 vaccines were administered to hospital staff. In the first instance the vaccine was offered to staff directly providing care to confirmed and suspect COVID-19 cases including ICU, the Emergency Department, Acute Assessment Unit and the COVID 19 wards. This includes support staff and clerical staff working in these areas also. The COVID-19 vaccination process requires people to get two doses. This means that most of the deliveries over the coming weeks will be used for the 2nd dose needed to complete the vaccination course for those who received the first dose. We have been advised by the HSE nationally that there is very little vaccine available to give a first dose to additional frontline healthcare workers outside of residential care facilities until February. They have also advised us that when the vaccination programme in residential care facilities is completed, vaccine supplies will be directed to frontline healthcare workers.
Vaccine clinics will be scheduled according to the availability of the vaccine and all staff in the hospital will be offered the vaccine.
The hospital vaccination team are also supporting administration of vaccines over the last week in Residential Care Facilities locally.
