The drive-through COVID-19 vaccination event held this week at the Superstore parking lot in Sudbury worked well, according to the Sudbury physician who organized the event with Public Health Sudbury and District (PHSD).
In fact, another drive-through vaccine event will take place in about four months’ time to allow vaccine recipients to drive up for their second dose.
The drive-through was held Monday and was organized by the Primacy Medical Centre in collaboration with Public Health Sudbury and Districts (PHSD).
Sudbury physician Dr. Dennis Reich, owner of the medical centre at the Superstore, said he was pleased with the outcome.
"Oh it went very well. I think it was a huge success. I think we did just under 700 doses. Everything went to plan," said Reich.
He said there was a minor glitch at the beginning with the provincial software used to register all the vaccine takers, but other than that, the plan worked out.
Reich said the day was pretty tightly scheduled and that made it hard to catch up on some of the early delays.
"But you know it was a pilot project so it was bound to have some hiccups,” he said.
Up until this week, the only local mass vaccination events have been the ones organized by PHSD and held in local community arenas.
He said he heard good comments all around during the day.
"Yeah, I think my personal staff, they had nothing but good things to say. They enjoyed the day. They enjoyed interacting with everyone. And the Public Health staff as well. They have done this a number of times in the arenas. They felt the system worked and it worked well," said Reich.
He said he also spoke with members of the public and they seemed cordial about the way the day unfolded, even though there were longer-than-anticipated wait times.
"I had heard in Southern Ontario some of these drive-throughs have you know a three, four-hour wait. I think here the longest wait was just under two hours in some cases when they were really backed up," he added.
There were traffic lineups on nearly all the access lanes into the east parking lot, where six vaccine stations had been set up.
As drivers approached the vaccine areas, PHSD workers approached them for a quick screening interview and to enter their Ontario Health care information into the provincial COVAX database.
Moments later, another health care worker gave the needle containing the Moderna vaccine.
Reich said despite the delays, people in general were appreciative. He said it was a good experience for him and the team.
"I think the biggest thing we learned, in terms of what I learned and what the team learned, is that we can accomplish pretty amazing things if you put your mind to it, when you've got great staff and hard workers," said Reich.
"We are thankful for the staff we had. We are thankful for Public Health. And we are thankful for the patience from the people at Canadian Tire, from the Beer Store and the Real Canadian Superstore, because there was some traffic stuff, but you know Sudburians were up for the challenge. We are thankful to be part of any solution to get out of this pandemic," Reich added.
He believes the drive-though model is something that could be done by other primary care providers because it is an effective and workable way to "get the vaccines out."
Beyond the second dose clinic this summer, Reich isn’t planning on another similar clinic, although he said he is happy to provide his expertise to other primary care providers.
Reich said before long the push will be on for people to be able to get out and get back to their normal lives, so he expects other drive-through mass vaccine events could be held not just in Sudbury but in other communities as well.
"We've already heard there are other health care providers that want to use the same model so we will give them what we learned and hopefully it can be improved every time," he said.
Len Gillis is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter at Sudbury.com. He covers health care in Northern Ontario.
