Pop-up vaccination site sets record

A pop-up vaccination site in Glenhazel carried out just more than 11% of the total 27 053 vaccinations administered across the country on 25 July, setting what is believed to be a record.

Three thousand COVID-19 vaccinations were administered at the volunteer-run site at The Base Shul on Sunday.

“Discovery has exceeded the number of vaccinations we did at The Base in a day, but the district manager of Joburg told me at the site that they haven’t exceeded more than 1 200 in any one of their sites in Gauteng,” said 27-year-old Dr Menachem Hockman, popularly known as “Dr Menoosh”.

Menoosh attributes the speed and efficiency of the process to the many volunteers who did the administration and all the other necessary procedures for vaccination.

“This is an initiative that we are trying to roll out at the moment, and it just shows the impact of having those extra hands to volunteer,” says Menoosh. “Bara [Baragwanath Hospital] and other sites have as many nurses as we have, they just don’t have those volunteers, and it shows what a difference they made. It was also something special at the site to show the impact of all our volunteers.”

One of the volunteers, Dalya Gerson, a dietician, said, “My role prior to the day was recruiting volunteers, organising them, showing them what they would have to do on the day, and giving them specific roles. I was also a volunteer for the day.”

According to the messages Menoosh has received, everyone was in and out within half an hour, including the 15-minute waiting time. “That’s brilliant for any vaccination site,” he said.

The speed came from the strategy of divorcing the administrative role from the vaccination role. “All the vaccinators had to focus on was administering vaccines, so they could push people through much quicker. That was our strategy.”

To help other government sites achieve a similar speed, volunteers may be dispersed through Gauteng VAX Volunteers (GiVV), a programme that operates at vaccine sites. These volunteers assist with, among other things, administrative tasks, filling out vaccination cards, registering individuals that are eligible for vaccinations, and updating and processing information once vaccinations have been administered.

“Running these sites is how we are helping the health department, which provided us with the vaccines,” said Menoosh. “We want to maintain that close relationship with it to allow us to do more. I want it to be given the credit for allowing us to do it, and it’s very important for it to continue to allow us to do so.”

• To help out or be a part of GiVV, apply by completing the sign-up form on www.givv.co.za. GiVV can also be found on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.