'Hands up, I'm ready': Ottawa primary care providers to receive AstraZeneca doses for their patients - Ottawa Citizen

On Thursday, a City of Ottawa official said more information, including locations, would be available shortly.

Author of the article:

Taylor Blewett

Dr. Elizabeth Muggah, head of the Ontario College of Family physicians, in front of the Bruyere Family Health Team in Ottawa. Photo by Tony Caldwell /Postmedia

More than 11,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine are slated to arrive in Ottawa next week, destined for the hands of health-care providers and the arms of patients at select community health centres and family health teams.

The news, shared Thursday by the City of Ottawa’s Emergency and Protective Services general manager, Anthony Di Monte, has Ottawa’s Dr. Elizabeth Muggah “absolutely delighted” and comes on the heels of a primary care pilot program she says helped get vaccines to patients facing barriers or hesitancy around getting shots.

Muggah is president of the Ontario College of Family Physicians, which has advocated for its members to have more involvement in vaccination efforts in the province.

“We definitely have been hearing from family doctors across the province who are saying, ‘You know … hands up, I’m ready,’” she said.

On Thursday, Ontario announced the province-wide expansion of an initiative offering COVID-19 vaccination through primary care providers. Previously, Muggah said, AstraZeneca doses went to select practices in six public health unit regions. The practices were identified by their local public health units and, in turn, reached out to patients in their practices and brought them in for vaccination based on provincial guidance regarding vaccine prioritization.

Story continues below

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

“It was great,” Muggah said. “I would say, from the family doctor point of view, there was tremendous satisfaction with being able to provide vaccines to patients. From the patient point of view, there was huge appreciation of being able to have the option to get the vaccine … with the health care providers who they know and they trust in a setting that they know and they trust.”

Muggah, a family doctor with the Bruyère Family Health Team, said theirs is among the sites selected to receive a portion of next week’s AstraZeneca shipment to Ottawa. She said she didn’t yet know how many doses they would be receiving, nor what the other selected sites were or how Ottawa Public Health decided which practices would be involved.

This newspaper reached out to OPH for information about the local primary care vaccination rollout, but was told a response would not be possible by Friday.

On Thursday, Di Monte said more information, including locations, would be available shortly. Ottawa’s Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Vera Etches, said at the time that she believed they would take the same approach as has been done with pharmacies, where AstraZeneca doses are available to people aged 55 and older, but she needed to confirm details.

What they saw with the pilots, and what Muggah expects will happen in Ottawa, is that family doctors took a variety of approaches to offering vaccination. Some set up drive-thrus, some offered weekend or evening clinics, and others integrated it into regular office hours. And, with many family doctors already doing home visits, there’s opportunity to vaccinate through that avenue as well.

Story continues below

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Muggah said she hoped the province-wide rollout produced the same conclusions the initial primary care program did in Hamilton, Toronto, Guelph, Peterborough, Simcoe-Muskoka, and Peel — “Family doctors absolutely can do this, and specifically we can move the dial on patients who are hesitant and vulnerable” — and grow from there.

“Because I think that every family doctor who wants to be able to offer this to their patients in office should have that opportunity.”