Booster appointments should be honoured despite HSE mix-up, says pharmacies

The Irish Pharmacy Union has said booster vaccine appointments made on Wednesday following information from the HSE, which was since reversed, should be honoured.

The union's secretary general Darragh O'Loughlin told RTÉ radio's Morning Ireland pharmacies received information from the HSE on Wednesday morning that they could provide the booster vaccine for a wider range of cohorts, including those who had received the one dose Janssen vaccine.

It later transpired that the document had been sent in error and pharmacies can provide the booster vaccine only for those aged over 50, healthcare workers, pregnant women and those with underlying conditions.

However, appointments had been made for other cohorts and those should be honoured, he said. Pharmacies had made the appointments on the basis of information that they believed to be correct.

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It would be a shame to see those people not getting the booster that they had booked, Mr O’Loughlin added.

The number of pharmacies providing the booster vaccine was growing, he said. It had risen from 400 three weeks ago to 700 at present. Supplies of the vaccine are strong and the HSE had agreed additional deliveries over the weekend.

The lifting of the 15-minute post-vaccine waiting time requirement will also help speed up the process, he explained and it meant that pharmacies could fit in more vaccinations. He advised that people who had not yet booked an appointment with their pharmacy should telephone, as there were now extra slots available because the 15-minute waiting time had been removed.

Unlike GPs, who could urge patients not to attend at surgeries unless it was urgent, pharmacies could not close their doors to deal only with vaccine clients, he said. In the meantime they had to continue to dispense prescriptions, he noted.

Meanwhile, a Co Galway GP has expressed annoyance and concern at calls for the public not to attend GPs before Christmas unless it is urgent.

Dr Peter Sloan, who has a family practice in Carraroe, warned RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show that people “could come to harm” if they did not go to their GP with some ailments.

People were afraid to go to their GP because of calls not to attend because of the focus on the booster vaccine programme.

“I’m not too busy that I won’t see patients,” he said, adding that the booster campaign could be managed along with regular appointments.

Dr Sloan said there had been a “rabbit in the headlights” approach to the booster campaign. It was all down to proper management, he said.

“I am very angry,” said Dr Sloan. “There are other conditions than Covid.”

He said GPs had been requesting vaccine supplies for some time, and then this week they were being offered “unlimited amounts”. He asked if “a switch had been flipped” somewhere to provide doses.

GPs had been planning for the booster campaign for some time with spreadsheets of patients, he said, but they had now been “pre-empted.”