The mobile vaccination clinic arrived at the terminal after four months of service, during which 8,000 vaccine doses were administered over nearly 10,000 kilometers.
89 sites were visited by the vaccination bus. Municipalities, schools, businesses and public places have benefited from its easy access.
“It is not so much the quantity as the quality of the doses that were administered,” said the Deputy President and CEO of the CIUSSS de la Mauricie and Center-du-Québec, Gilles Hudon.
According to the manager of the mobile clinic, Élyse Dufour, people were grateful for the passage of the bus, because “many people were an hour from a vaccination center,” said the manager.
The clinic even lent a hand in Trois-Rivières, in Mauricie, during the outbreak in downtown Montreal, towards the end of the summer. That day, a record number of 251 doses were administered by the team on site, said Ms. Dufour.
The challenge now remains to attract 18-39 year olds, the group with the poorest vaccination coverage in the Mauricie and Center-du-Québec regions. Those who are adequately vaccinated represent 67% of 18-29 year olds and 68.6% of 30-29 year olds.
It is one less string to the CIUSSS-MCQ’s bow which thus decided to move resources elsewhere. “We have about ten vaccination squads. It is a team of four to five people who will be able to go to remote areas, once again to schools. We are already in schools currently at the secondary level. We are also in business a lot, ”explained Mr. Hudon.
Its teams have picked up staff from mass vaccination clinics, which are only open three days a week in large centers.
The race for collective immunity continues and there is no question of reliving the beginning of the fourth wave, when Trois-Rivières was the epicenter of the spread of the virus. Currently, 26 outbreaks are active in the region, mostly in workplaces and schools. They are also more present in Center-du-Québec this time around.
There are, however, fewer cases linked to outbreaks, Hudon added.
Increasingly heavy load shedding
The load shedding is still very present in the hospitals of the region while the surgical rooms are closing, the hours of service in certain sectors are reduced and the number of beds in the medicine-surgery units is reduced.
A problem could worsen after October 15, when all health personnel will have to be vaccinated, on pain of layoff.
“It is possible that there are impacts on the services. I mean, we are working on mitigation plans, contingency plans, to see the impact that this will create on the health network, ”assured the Deputy CEO of the CIUSSS-MCQ.
The Legault government, for its part, has pledged to avoid service breakdowns, despite the probable suspension of nearly 10,000 unvaccinated caregivers in the provinces.
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