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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-10-13 Daily Xml
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Question Time

COVID-19 Vaccination Rollout

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (14:18): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Health and Wellbeing regarding health.

Leave granted.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: The member for Mawson in the other place, Leon Bignell, has received concerning reports from locals on Kangaroo Island about COVID-19 vaccinations. Residents have claimed they cannot get their second dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca since the vaccination clinic left the island on 9 October. GPs and chemists on the island have confirmed with local residents that they need to travel to Victor Harbor and it is not covered by the PAT Scheme that helps people pay for travel for medical care. My questions to the minister are:

1. Why are residents of Kangaroo Island being forced to undertake a round trip of more than 300 kilometres and catch a ferry across the Backstairs Passage, at a cost of $296 per person and their vehicle, to get their second vaccination dose just weeks before COVID-19 is expected to re-enter South Australia with borders opening?

2. How will the minister ensure that residents can get their second vaccination and that there will be enough time to develop the maximum immune response before borders are reopened on this very important tourist destination to this state?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:20): I thank the honourable member for his question. It was great to be able to sit outside the coffee shop at Kingscote with the vaccine clinic coordinator a week or two ago when I was in Kangaroo Island and to share with her her excitement about the huge success of the vaccination program on Kangaroo Island.

My recollection is that the Kingscote clinic, in partnership with the Royal Flying Doctor Service, completed its second round of doses at the end of last week. The clinic coordinator highlighted to me that there will be some people who may choose to get their second dose on the mainland, and that could be through a visit to metro clinics or to the Victor Harbor clinics.

It is certainly my understanding that the Barossa Hills Fleurieu Local Health Network and their vaccination team will be looking for opportunities to continue the vaccination program on the island, not through a community-based clinic like we have had up until this point but through services such as pharmacies, pharmacy programs and the like.

There may well be an opportunity for future fly-ins. One of the particular challenges that I discussed with the clinic head was the fact that, with people coming in and out of the residential aged-care facility operated on the Kingscote hospital site, there will be a need for ongoing vaccinations there. In fact, the very day that I was there there was a pop-up clinic—no, that wouldn't be the word—you might call it a mobile clinic, people from the community clinic who were going up to the hospital to deliver vaccine doses.

The head of the clinic explained to me there may well be opportunities such as a day fly-in visit. There might be, as I said, operations through pharmacies—

The Hon. C.M. Scriven: When?

The Hon. S.G. WADE: —but the most recent clinic only finished at the end of last week. My understanding was that clinic was going well beyond the 80 per cent on the island. I thank the honourable member for the prompt to go and check the data in terms of what was achieved by the end of the clinic period. Certainly, the advice that I had from her was that there had been a very significant increase in bookings for that last week or so and they were intending to do everything they could to meet the demand.

I think this will be true with a number of clinics. Stand-up clinics have a purpose for a time and as people know that certain clinic options will no longer be available many of them will make the most of that access but I assure the people of Kangaroo Island that we will continue to look at opportunities to provide vaccines to their community.

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