Vaccines – staff pay tribute

THOUSANDS 'HONOURED' TO PLAY ROLE IN HISTORIC VACCINE ROLLOUT #FORUSALL

Pat Nolan Renée Weldon

“I go home tired every day but I go home happy every day.” That is the daily experience of Pat Nolan, who has been volunteering at his local vaccination centre in Dublin for several months.

“From the earliest days, it has been great to see people coming in. My abiding memory will be of people smiling. People are literally running past you to get their vaccine. Often I’ve had to say ‘whoa slow down’ but you could see the relief on their faces. It was palpable. They knew that they would finally be able to get out of lockdown and go and visit their families,” revealed Pat.

Thousands of people around the country have been responsible for the smooth running of the historic COVID-19 vaccination programme and many, like Pat, have shared their joy and overwhelming pride in playing their individual role.

Vaccination Team Lead Renée Weldon said if she was to describe her experience at the vaccination centre in just three words, they would be overwhelming, intense – and fun.

“This is a completely unique setting, that every age, every discipline, every background. We have doctors, physios, dentists, midwives, nurses from every discipline. It’s such a unique mish-mash of people coming together to have this common goal to protect as many people in this country as we can,” said Renée.

“We are lucky in this country that we were able to set up this vaccination programme and that we were able to facilitate getting our country vaccinated in such a short period of time.”

She said that everyone has a different story to tell about their COVID experiences and what the vaccine means for them.

“I remember one man and he just burst into tears because he said, “I’ll never forget it, I wish my dad could have survived COVID to get his vaccine. His dad had passed away six months previously but that was quite stark and quite shocking. You forget when you meet these people, and you meet a lot throughout the day, every person has their own story and you see everyone’s individual’s interaction or loss because of COVID or how that has affected them,” she said.

John Holohan, Operational Lead at the vaccination centre in the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, said the first thing that struck him on day one was how well everything was structured.

“I was struck by how everything flowed so professionally and efficiently although I was jumping in at the deep end because we got busier and busier and busier,” he said, before paying tribute to the team in place.

“In any complex structure, you have support systems, you have people in place who were never seen on the frontline but are working hard to make sure the frontline works as well as it does. We are dealing with 3,500 people a day in terms of vaccines which is a huge amount. The administration is actually critical to make sure that when a person comes into a vaccination centre, their experience is seamless.”

Nuala Pender, Vaccination Team Lead, said the task ahead of the vaccination teams seemed very daunting at first.

“I remember coming in on day one and we were given a certain amount of numbers but by degrees those numbers went up and I remember thinking ‘my gosh, this is such a daunting task to take on, particularly looking at over 3,000 people a day and things like that. But honestly, the teams and processes that were put in place have been amazing,” said Nuala.

For Nuala, the whole experience has been dominated by happy faces.

“Honestly the main experience is smiles and that has been wonderful. And even though we are all wearing masks, we are all smiling behind the masks all the time. I have to say there has been so many moments

Maureen Jacobs Nuala Pender John Holohan

“It is a fantastic team of people here, not just the volunteers, but the clinical team, the administration team, who have helped us tremendously throughout the whole process so it has been a great experience here. I have met some wonderful people and worked with some wonderful people here of very diverse backgrounds, a very diverse group of people from young students to oldies like myself. It’s been a great team and a great experience.”

of great pride and delight watching people coming in, they have gotten dressed up to come in and get their vaccine. We’ve had people who have had horrible illnesses, and maybe life-limiting illnesses, they come in and they are in tears and I guarantee you I’ve been in tears and so have the vaccinators. Everybody is just so delighted to be here. There are smiles from literally the first door you come through, all the way through the registration system and the vaccination system and finally at observation before they go out the door,” she said.

Dr Eugene O’Loughlin retired last year and decided to play a further role in the fight against COVID-19 by joining the volunteer sta at the vaccination centre.

“I retired at the end of last year in the middle of the pandemic so this was a great opportunity to get involved in something really really big like this by joining the team here. I’m here for five months and we look after the queues, we manage the flow of people, we try to answer any questions people might have and generally try to keep the spirits of people up while they are queuing as you can see here behind me to get to registration and to get their vaccination. It is a very pleasant and lovely, lovely job,” he said.

Eugene O'Loughlin

Fellow volunteer Maureen Jacobs said she found it all very rewarding.

“It’s been really fantastic, I really enjoyed it and it has been rewarding. The team here has been amazing, from housekeeping and security to admin sta and medical sta and of course the volunteers. Everyone has been fantastic. The atmosphere and the team environment is brilliant. We have all been learning together, it’s unprecedented, it’s really new, so we’ve all had to learn on the job pretty quickly but everyone has pulled together.”