Camille McEach­nie

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s(THA) health de­liv­ery arm, the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (TRHA) has re­ceived 200 of the 2,000 vac­cines gift­ed to this coun­try by the Bar­ba­dos Gov­ern­ment.

The vac­cines ar­rived in To­ba­go on Feb­ru­ary 18 and the first of two dos­es will be giv­en to first re­spon­ders to­day.

This is ac­cord­ing to the au­thor­i­ty’s Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Pri­ma­ry Health Care Ser­vices Dr Rox­anne Mitchell.

Speak­ing dur­ing the TRHA’s COVID-19 vac­cine aware­ness cam­paign, which be­gan on To­ba­go Chan­nel 5 yes­ter­day, she said the first dose would be giv­en at the Scar­bor­ough Health Cen­tre.

She told the morn­ing show host-Deryck Brath­waite (Broth­er B) front­line doc­tors and nurs­es were in­vit­ed to list their names for the vac­cines. She gave the as­sur­ances the vac­cines are safe.

“Those per­sons in those key ar­eas such as ac­ci­dent and emer­gency, anaes­thet­ics and ICU, the per­sons in charge of the green room, To­ba­go Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and Em­pow­er­ment Cen­ter (TREC), and the al­lied agen­cies, sur­round­ing the treat­ment of per­sons who were deemed COVID pos­i­tive.”

Dr Mitchell said if first re­spon­ders do not take the vac­cine then sec­ond and third re­spon­ders, who want it, will be ac­com­mo­dat­ed.

She says the health sys­tem is ready to treat any­one who may have an al­ler­gic re­ac­tion to the vac­cine.

She said the vac­cines would be giv­en at the Scar­bor­ough, Rox­bor­ough, and Canaan Health Cen­tres where there are crash carts.

“The crash cart is opened when you have the life-threat­en­ing event like car­diores­pi­ra­to­ry. We have the med­ica­tions that can jump-start the heart and we can in­tu­bate you to en­sure that you breathe.

She said the steps are pre­cau­tion­ary, as with all vac­cines.

“Any life-threat­en­ing re­ac­tion will take place with­in the first 10-15 mins. Be­yond that, for half an hour, we mon­i­tor you. So you get the shot, you have a seat, we ob­serve you. Be­yond that, we give you your sec­ond ap­point­ment date, and we send you home. We will have to staff that will call you every day or What­sApp you choose to com­mu­ni­cate with us.”

She said peo­ple might ex­pe­ri­ence a low-grade fever, tired­ness, snif­fles, tum­my aches, and red­ness at the in­jec­tion site. She al­so said some per­sons might ex­pe­ri­ence tum­my aches.

She said more vac­cines would ar­rive in To­ba­go next week, and oth­er first and sec­ond re­spon­ders will be vac­ci­nat­ed. As more vac­cines ar­rive, per­sons with co­mor­bidi­ties will be vac­ci­nat­ed, Dr Mitchell said.