OSOYOOS TIMES-October 14, 2009
By Paul Everest – Osoyoos Times
Osoyoos’s seniors have some choice this season about where they can get their annual flu shot.
Pharmasave and Shoppers Drug Mart have teamed up with the University of British Columbia (UBC) for a program that offers free flu shots to community residents aged 65 or older at Osoyoos’s pharmacies.
At Pharmasave, the clinics will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. on October 15, 20 and 29 and November 4, 10, 19 and 24; from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Oct. 22 and from 10 a.m. to noon on Oct. 27 and November 2, 12, 17 and 26.
At Shoppers Drug Mart, the clinics will be held on Oct. 27 from 9 a.m. to noon, on Nov. 4 from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m., on Nov. 12 from 9 a.m. to noon, on Nov. 20 from 5 to 8 p.m. and on Nov. 23 from 2 to 5 p.m.
The program is part of the Pharmacy-based Immunization in Rural Communities Strategy, a UBC research project looking at flu vaccination rates in 11 rural communities across the province this year between Oct. 15 and Nov. 26.
Elisa Murru, the project’s coordinator, said the study is meant to help determine if such flu-shot clinics can help increase vaccination rates in rural B.C. by comparing this year’s vaccination rates across the province to rates in previous years.
Giving people the chance to get the shot at pharmacies, which often have business hours which extend past those of medical clinics or doctors’ offices, means more accessibility to the vaccine for people with sporadic schedules, she said.
Participants in the clinics will be asked to fill out a questionnaire about where they received the flu shot this year.
Murru added that the program also compliments already existing vaccination services at public health facilities and local doctors’ clinics.
The shots will be administered by nurses or pharmacists.
Proposed legislation was introduced earlier this year which would allow pharmacists to provide injections such as vaccines.
The regulations are expected to be approved in the coming weeks and according to the B.C. Health Services Ministry, once the legislation is passed, the College of Pharmacists of BC would have to put bylaws in place allowing its pharmacists to administer the injections.
The legislation would limit the kinds of injections pharmacists could give to vaccinations that are administered through the skin or muscles, not veins.
Steven Hoppe, who owns Osoyoos’s Shoppers Drug Mart and works as a pharmacist there, said he completed training offered by UBC and the BC Pharmacy Association which allows him to administer the flu shot.
He is waiting for certification from the College of Pharmacists of BC.
At Pharmasave, owner/pharmacist Jolly Gill has also completed the training and is awaiting certification.
Pam Dabis, an owner/pharmacy manager at Pharmasave, said she will begin the training courses for giving injections soon and could be certified in time to help out before the clinics end.
If the legislation allowing pharmacists to give the injections is not passed in time, a nurse will be present at both pharmacies to give the shots.
People who participate in the clinics can choose to have their family doctor informed about their flu shot and some community residents will be invited to attend the clinics through a letter from their pharmacist.
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