Nursing homes welcome Sunday's vaccination deadline

Nursing Homes Ireland CEO Tadhg Daly: 'The vaccine is a good story, the only side-effect we are hearing is euphoria.' Picture: PA

Nursing Homes Ireland has welcomed next Sunday's deadline for giving residents their first vaccine dose but warned that nursing homes cannot relax yet.

CEO Tadhg Daly said feedback now from the nursing homes is positive despite a rocky start earlier this month.

“The vaccine is a good story, the only side-effect we are hearing is euphoria," he said. "But the number of new outbreaks is concerning.” 

As the gap between doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is now 28 days, Mr Daly said this meant people vaccinated at the end of this week will not be fully protected until late February.

The vaccine teams are now working solely with nursing homes, in effect diverting vaccines from the frontline system to the most vulnerable people.

However, Mr Daly does not expect the current outbreaks to slow down the vaccine roll-out. He said nursing homes have made great efforts to set aside separate rooms for this process.

Swabbing of staff and residents continues on a weekly basis. Many larger homes now collect swabs in an approved manner over a 24-hour period or slightly longer which increases the number of staff tested each time.

The batches are then sent for testing.

On Sunday HSE Chief Clinical Officer Colm Henry wrote to nursing homes stressing the importance of checking each resident’s individual risks before giving the vaccine.

The letter was circulated to nursing homes and some homes forwarded it to families on Monday. It refers to an update on Friday from the Norwegian Medicines Agency and the Norwegian National Institute of Public Health following the deaths of 23 people, of which 13 have been assessed.

Norwegian authorities said in a statement to Bloomberg they were not now concerned the vaccine was a direct cause of the assessed deaths. Medical director of the NMA said: “Clearly, Covid-19 is far more dangerous to most patients than vaccination, we are not concerned.” 

The HSE letter states: 

The reports suggest that common adverse reactions to mRNA vaccines such as fever and nausea may have contributed to a fatal outcome in some very frail elderly individuals.” 

It refers to the “comfort and dignity” typically part of palliative care, and stresses the need for individual decisions to be taken for each resident.

The letter states: “… given that the benefit from vaccination only begins about 10-14 days following the first dose and full protection is not achieved until 7-14 days following the second dose of vaccine currently in use, it is not appropriate to vaccinate people if their expected duration of life is less than that for the vaccines to take effect.” 

The HSE letter highlights the need to delay the jab for anyone who has a fever or other temporary illness.

Majella Beatty of Care Champions advocacy group, said: “It is very worrying for families to get this, they are worried about what to do now. They are worried too to open their mouth in case they are labelled as anti-vaxxers and that is not the case.” 

 She called on the HSE to support nursing homes with enough staff to allow for proper communication with families and residents.