Today, Niagara Health reopens its COVID-19 Vaccination Clinic for high-risk healthcare workers at the Seymour Hannah Sports and Entertainment Centre in St. Catharines. The larger clinic space will allow the hospital to get more needles into arms, as vaccine supply becomes available.
The Niagara Health clinic will continue its work administering first and second doses of the Pfizer vaccine to long-term care and high-risk retirement home staff and essential caregivers, as well as hospital staff and physicians. At the same time, Niagara Region Public Health will continue its work deploying mobile teams to vaccinate residents at long-term care and high-risk retirement homes.
Between January 13 and 20, Niagara Health administered 2,417 first doses of the vaccine to highest-risk healthcare workers at its St. Catharines Site. This work resumes today at the St. Catharines arena, after global Pfizer supply issues caused the clinic to temporarily close.
“The larger clinic space will allow us to immunize more than 1,000 people per day once we receive regular vaccine shipments,” said Linda Boich, Niagara Health EVP, Quality and Mental Health & Addictions, Executive Lead, Integrated Care. “We’ve tripled our capacity in this new space, with 20 vaccination booths set up in one of the arena’s rinks, with a screening and registration area set up in the atrium.”
Niagara Health plans to vaccinate 500 people today and another 500 people on Thursday February 18. Following this initial launch, the clinic staff will then move to vaccinate 1,000 people per day and will stay at that level pending vaccine supply and provincial direction. As the Province of Ontario provides further updates on expected vaccine shipments, Niagara Health and the Region will provide information on what this means at a local level.
At this time, the new clinic will only be in use for highest-risk healthcare workers, and any future updates about mass immunization planning for the general public will be made available on Niagara Region Public Health’s website: www.niagararegion.ca/covid-vaccine
