About 500 happy community residents were able to obtain flu shots at LAMP Community Health Centre despite a shortage of the cold-fighting medication.
The front lawn of LAMP’s Fifth Street property on November 7 was converted into an outdoor medical clinic with tents staffed by dozens of volunteers, who included student nurses from Humber College, qualified nurses and Dr. Noor Amin.
Dr Amin said St. Joseph’s Health Centre, where he works on a COVID-19 Assessment Team, is one of the few places in the community where residents can be tested for COVID-19 that is free and does not require an appointment.
His was the supervising doctor at the LAMP outdoor clinic, ensuring that all procedures went well.
“People are very appreciative to get the flu shots,” Dr. Amin observed. “People were extremely happy and the line-up of people stretched around the block at intervals.”
LAMP Executive Director Keddone Dias said by late noon most of their 500 flu shots were gone.
“We are pleased to open our clinic to better serve the community,” Dias said. “People were very pleased to get their shots here.”
Area residents kept streaming to the clinic for the shots during the nice sunny day.
“They are in and out of here in five minutes,” said one volunteer. “It has been non-stop for some periods.”
LAMP had at one point briefly cancelled the event, due to a shortage of the shots.
There was another outdoor vaccination site at 7 Junction Rd., at Riverside Cardiology and Diagnostic Imaging, in the Junction area.
Some larger pharmacies, like Rexall, has had to briefly suspend their inoculation program due to a lack of medication.
Rexall said it was making efforts to secure more flu vaccine doses “promptly” and promised to update its customers via email and online when flu shots became available again.
Health Minster Christine Elliott said that before the pandemic began the Ontario government had been planning a massive flu shot campaign and in preparation for that ordered 5.1 million doses — 700,000 more than 2019. When the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, Ontario ordered an additional 350,000 doses with help from the federal government