NATIONAL NEWS - The Democratic Alliance in the Western Cape has aired concern that the province is yet to receive the bulk of vaccines needed for the second phase of vaccination.
It was initially expected during mid-April but the new arrival date has now been communicated as 17 May.
The Western Cape Department of Health has announced a Rural District Roadshow to assess the readiness for the second phase of the vaccination process in the country, but, says MPP Wendy Philander, national government is responsible for distributing vaccines to provinces, and provincial health departments can only ensure vaccination takes place once it receives the vaccines.
In a statement today, Tuesday 13 April, Philander says, "The roadshow indicates that the province’s systems are in place to begin the second phase of the roll-out and that it would cover all areas of the Western Cape.
"We have seen that vaccines are of great benefit to the health of workers and our system, and so it is disappointing that we have yet to receive the vaccines to cover our entire human resource component in the health sector or the final tranche of J&J vaccines as expected over the past weekend. We need the leadership of the national Department of Health to get on board."
The provincial Department of Health has indicated that they would be able to administer 30 000 jabs per day, which is in line with targets set by national government in order to reach population immunity.
The department has already utilised R980 000 to train vaccinators and that this could be extended to more vaccinators where necessary, at no further cost to taxpayers.
"As part of our oversight role, we will put forward a debate at the Western Cape Provincial Parliament on the challenges experienced during the roll-out of the Sisonke process amongst healthcare workers. This aims to address existing challenges and continuously narrow the margin of error that may exist in our systems regarding the vaccine roll-out strategy currently underway.”
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