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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-02-04 Daily Xml
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Vaccination

The Hon. T.T. NGO (15:12): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Health and Wellbeing regarding vaccines.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.T. NGO: The minister would be aware of the significant pressure on our healthcare workers this year to deliver both the COVID and influenza vaccines. The minister has previously resisted calls to allow community pharmacies access to the National Immunisation Program stockpile of influenza vaccines for people over the age of 65. In contrast, the other states allow pharmacists to use these vaccines. Pharmacists have now been told they will help to deliver the COVID vaccines, but there is no answer from the state government about flu vaccines from the National Immunisation Program stockpile. My questions to the minister are:

1. How exactly will the state government make sure that people can get both influenza and COVID vaccines this year?

2. Will the minister allow pharmacists to administer the influenza vaccines through the National Immunisation Program stockpile?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:14): I thank the honourable member for his question. I must admit I am disappointed with it in many ways because the Hon. Tung Ngo is less inclined to misrepresentation than other colleagues on the other side. To try to give the impression to this chamber that all other states and territories provide National Immunisation Program vaccines to pharmacists on the same basis as doctors is simply misleading. My recollection is that two or three jurisdictions allow a pharmacist to access NIP vaccines for very limited cohorts.

Having put aside the distortion, let me address the issue, which is about what role pharmacists might have. I suppose the honourable member was specifically talking about the influenza vaccine, but in relation to the 2020 response you cannot think about pharmacists and influenza vaccines without thinking about pharmacists and COVID-19 vaccines. What the commonwealth is doing, and I strongly commend them for this, is engaging with a whole range of immunisation providers who might be able to help assist in the immunisation program.

That is a very sound approach, considering that not only in this state but right across the nation we are faced with the largest peacetime operation since World War II. I suppose World War II wasn't peacetime, but let's be clear, this is huge. We must be realistic. An operation of that size will have road bumps, but what we need to make sure is that, just as we have as a community pulled together all our resources to respond to the pandemic in year one, we need to do exactly the same to back the vaccination program.

What has the commonwealth done? What they have done is they have issued an expressions of interest process to both GPs and pharmacists. They are both underway. I haven't had this confirmed, but I understand the GP EOI might well have been extended to make sure that we maximise the engagement. The commonwealth, as I said, is looking at a range of immunisation providers. It is talking about engaging Aboriginal community-controlled health organisations and other immunisation providers.

What is going to be a particular challenge this year is to make sure that we maintain our effort on immunisation generally as well as the COVID-19 vaccine. That's not just influenza. This house is well aware of this government's proud investment in meningococcal B vaccinations.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I am sorry, if the Labor Party wants to condemn us for meningococcal B vaccination, just feel free to put it on a notice of motion, but don't do it with—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Leader of the Opposition did become quiet for a little while, but he is behaving badly again. The minister, I am sure, is seeking to come to a conclusion, but he will be heard in silence. The minister.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: If I could try to reconstruct the train of logic to keep it simple for the members of the opposition, simply the point I am making is that we have a huge vaccination program that we face in 2021. We have a series of national and state-funded immunisation programs, e.g. flu and meningococcal B vaccinations, to deliver in the same year. The commonwealth has very wisely engaged a whole range of immunisation providers in the COVID response and the rollout of the NIP vaccines in 2021.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.G. WADE: If I could continue to answer without being heckled—

The PRESIDENT: Order! If the opposition has asked this question and they are not willing to listen to the answer, we will move on.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Even if the honourable opposition members are not interested in the answer to their own question, I can assure you the broader community is because the broader community is willing to back vaccines. That's why—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. S.G. WADE: —the report on government services showed that we are within a hair's breadth of reaching the 95 per cent vaccination rate for—

The Hon. K.J. Maher: What's the rate for COVID, though?

The Hon. S.G. WADE: The question wasn't about COVID. It was about influenza.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Minister, conclude your answer and we will move on.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: To go to the point the honourable member was raising, in the context of COVID, in the context of the need to maintain our ongoing vaccination programs, of course the commonwealth is engaging pharmacists. We will need to look at the management of the health workforce to support both the COVID response and the National Immunisation Program response. Certainly, in the context of the demands on the GP network, particularly in relation to COVID, there may well be a case for engaging pharmacists in areas that they haven't been engaged in before.

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