A Werribee doctor is asking locals to be patient with pharmacists and GP clinics as they deal with flu shot surges and staff shortages.
Last week, the state government announced that the flu vaccine would be available for free throughout June.
Dr Joe Garra said the free vaccine were a “good idea” but the logistics before the announcement was made “weren’t quite worked out”.
“We only got half a day’s notice that we were going to be giving out free vaccines,” he said.
“Rather than 12 hours notice, a week would have been nice to make sure that GPs who didn’t have stock, could order it.”
The flu vaccination is already free for eligible groups including children under five-years-old, people aged over 65 years, pregnant women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and people with increased risk of medical conditions.
“We know roughly how many of those we give out every year so we know how much we need to order,” Dr Garra said.
“It’s not like we can ring the state government and say ‘send us some more vaccines’ that’s not how it works.”
Dr Garra said the clinic he works at in Werribee Village was “pretty booked out everyday” before the vaccines were made free.
“There’s five of us [doctors] today, and we’re all booked,” he said.
“It could be just a side effect of the shortage of GPs in the area, we’ve lost some GPs and not been able to replace them.”
Dr Garra said clinics and pharmacies were left to figure out the details when determining how they could safely administer the jab while dealing with the shortages.
“There’s the other issue of how we find the time to actually give it,” Dr Garra said.
“We do want to give everyone the flu shot…we just have to be able to watch them in case they faint.”
