GP says system not working after 200 vaccine doses not delivered to clinic

Dr Nuala O’Connor, Covid lead for the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP), said her practice in Cork had also experienced problems, being left 12 doses short with the delivery for the 80 to 85 cohort of patients.

A Dublin GP has told of how vaccines for 200 patients aged 80 to 85 were not delivered on Thursday despite emails to confirm delivery.

Dr Hugh Daly from Palmerstown, Co Dublin had expected the vaccine to arrive early on Thursday and had made appointments with the 200 patients to receive their vaccine.

“The system just doesn’t seem to be working very effectively,” he told RTÉ radio’s News at One.

A separate delivery of needles and syringes has also not arrived, he added.

“We just don’t know if it is going to come and if we should schedule a clinic for Saturday.

“We’re all ready to rock and roll, but without the vaccine we can’t proceed.” 

Dr Nuala O’Connor, Covid lead for the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP), told the same programme that her practice in Cork had also experienced problems, being left 12 doses short with the delivery for the 80 to 85 cohort of patients.

But the good news was that thousands of the over-85s around the country had been vaccinated, she said.

There were a lot of successes in the first two weeks of the roll out, but there appeared to have been a significant number of problems on week three.

“We need people to understand that their personal GP is not at fault.” The vaccine was being given to patients “as quickly as we get them,” she said.

Dr O’Connor said that initially delivery was being operated on 48 hours notice, but this seemed to be 24 hours now which did not leave sufficient time for GPs to make appointments and arrangements.

GPs needed a longer lead in time and to know that the vaccine would arrive when it was supposed to.

Dr O’Connor also wanted to correct a media report which indicated that part of the problem was that GP surgeries were not operating on Saturdays.

That was not the case, she said, “as soon as they arrive they are given.” There was a supply issue and delivery was being very carefully mapped.

The Buddy system, where smaller practices joined together, had worked very well with a few issues such as the vaccine being delivered to the incorrect practice.

However, she acknowledged that there were a number of small practices with “very few” patients in that age group for whom bespoke arrangements needed to be made.

“We know now that it is going to go into a fourth week.”