PARENTS are raising concerns about accessing COVID-19 vaccines for children aged five to 11 in Stawell before school returns in 2022.
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This comes as the Victorian government began its under 11 vaccination program across the state on Monday.
A resident contacted the Stawell Times-News and highlighted their worries about sending their children back to school unvaccinated due to the lack of vaccine availability within the region.
"My wife and I work full time and from what I understand we will need to take time off work, and not just an hour or two, to get our children vaccinated," he said.
"I've been told we need to go to Ballarat, Ararat or Horsham. This would be putting immense pressure on the healthcare workers in other areas. There is also the concern about travelling to other areas where COVID is reported in higher numbers.
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"We just have to look back at what happened at the end of 2021 in the schools across Stawell.
"The mixed messaging is confusing. The best defence is the vaccine - which I agree with. But now we're going to send our children back to school more than likely unvaccinated.
"It just doesn't make much sense. Some parents will be having to make some really hard decisions in the upcoming weeks."
Stawell Regional Health responded to the concerns and said a limited number of paediatric vaccines were available in Stawell - however, the clinic was not a designated state-run vaccine hub.
I've been told we need to go to Ballarat, Ararat or Horsham. This would be putting immense pressure on the healthcare workers in other areas
"Stawell Regional Health was not originally appointed to run a vaccination clinic in 2022 as part of the rationalisation of state-run clinics," a spokesperson said.
"The Grampians region were to have three state vaccination hubs: Ballarat, Ararat and Horsham. As such, Stawell Regional Health closed down the clinic on the 23rd December.
"With the emergence of the Omicron variant just before Christmas, National Cabinet decided that this was not a good time to wind back the state clinics so Stawell was advised after Christmas that we can reopen the clinic. Since then, we have worked to recruit staff and to source vaccines to commence the adult clinics."
The spokesperson said Stawell Regional Health hoped to run paediatric vaccination clinics in the coming months, but said the bulk of children's vaccinations would come from Horsham, Ararat or Ballarat.
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"Stawell has not been allocated a role in the state-run paediatric vaccination program," the spokesperson said.
"The state-run paediatric programs run from Ballarat, Ararat and Horsham. Stawell Regional Health, working with Stawell Medical Centre has access to a limited supply of Commonwealth supplied, paediatric dose vaccines.
"We hope to run a number of paediatric clinics in the coming weeks on a bookings-only basis. We have only just secured advice that we can get some paediatric vaccines and so we will run a limited paediatric vaccination program that will be bookings only.
"We will use our social media and other media to advise when the bookings open for paediatric doses."
Vaccine bookings for children aged between five and 11 will be available at the Wimmera Health Care Group's state-run vaccine clinic in Horsham and Lister House Clinic's vaccination centre.
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