Northeast family doctor wants vaccines in neighbourhood clinics, mobile vans

CALGARY — One northeast Calgary family doctor says to give him COVID-19 vaccine doses and he’ll run vaccine clinics for free.

Doctors working the area are calling for pop up clinics – as data shows some of the hardest-hit areas lag behind in vaccine uptake.

Just 32.9 per cent of people in Calgary’s upper northeast have their first dose, while still seeing high transmission rates that have persisted throughout the pandemic.

The Skyview Ranch physician says to give doses to doctor’s offices or set up mobile sites in the neighbourhood.

READ MORE: Fully vaccinated Albertans no longer required to quarantine when identified as a close contact

“Let’s say Redstone has a clinic, Skyview has a clinic … let’s say I’m doing it right outside Skyview, so I have a little van sitting there, giving all the vaccinations, then people sit in the grass after their vaccination and they can just say .. ‘my 15 minutes is up, I’m feeling fine,'” said Dr. Preet Pal Singh Sekhon, a family physician at Apex Sky Medical Centre.

An Alberta Health Service report recommends shifting doses to areas with low vaccine rates.

The Alberta Government opened Calgary’s first mass vaccination site at the Genesis Centre in March in response to high cases, but some argue there are still barriers to getting a vaccine.

“We’ve basically set up a vaccine Hunger Games, where you have to get on Twitter, to get the vax hunters, you have to be able to navigate digital online booking systems, you have to know which pharmacies to call,” said Dr. Gabriel Fabreau, a general internist at the Peter Lougheed Centre. “In our hardest hit neighbourhoods, there are working-class neighbourhoods where people work shift work, they’re a high proportion of visible minorities, and newcomers, recent newcomers, they have large language barriers.”

The province notes it recently expanded the Genesis Clinic, translated public health material into 13 languages, and launched a campaign to deal with hesitancy.

READ MORE: Docs worried about maxed-out ICUs as Alberta heads into ‘trauma season’

A statement from Alberta Health says: “Now that the rollout is picking up speed and everyone age 12 and older is eligible, we are developing strategies to determine where and when additional temporary measures can best be used to target areas with lower uptake.”

But some say it’s about accessibility, not hesitancy, because they’ve already seen the positive effects of vaccines.

“The good thing is lots of people had their first vaccine before they caught the coronavirus, and the symptoms were not that bad,” said Dr. Preet Pal Singh Sekhon.