Cebu City dad pushes for night vaccinations for workers

By: Delta Dyrecka Letigio - 3 years ago

Red vaccination rooms in Cebu City for Sputnik V. | Photo Courtesy of Cebu City PIO

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Councilor Alvin Dizon is asking the Vaccine Advisory Board (VAB) to open vaccination sites at night for workers to be able to avail conveniently of the shots.

Dizon said in a resolution recently passed by the City Council that the workers who need the vaccination most find trouble getting the vaccine because the schedule for the vaccination is during business hours on weekdays.

“To help address this constraint and to encourage this important sector to get their jab, be protected, and help revive our local economy, it is worth studying the feasibility of adopting this innovative night-shift vaccination scheme in our city’s vaccination program,” said Dizon.

The councilor believes that if vaccination sites are open during off-work hours, the workers will no longer need to worry about losing a day’s work just to get vaccinated.

Such a move has been done in other cities as well including Quezon City and Valenzuela City, and Cebu City may well be capable of adopting the night shift scheme.

“A day job should not be a health barrier for our workers to get the shot and the government must show and act to establish the people’s trust in its vaccination program by seeing them through the entire vaccination process in which accessibility and convenience are important components,” said Dizon.

With the Council’s approval, Dizon has asked the Vaccine Advisory Board to conduct a study if this could apply to the city.

As much as the City Health Department (CHD) would want to follow the Council’s recommendation, it currently faces a problem that threatens its continuous vaccination program.

Doctor Jeffrey Ibones, the head of the CHD, said there is simply a lack of vaccines that forced them to close most of their sites as of now except for one in J. Alcantara Street currently rolling out the 5,000 Sputnik vaccines.

Only the site in J. Alcantara Street has red rooms for the inoculation of Sputnik vaccines, a requirement to protect the vaccine from natural light.

The CHD is currently focusing on the second dose of the vaccine inoculation because there are no first dose vaccines available aside from the Sputnik vaccines.

Today, July 16, 2021, to Saturday, July 17, 2021, the CHD will be going to the mountain barangays to administer the second doses of the vaccines in Barangays Buhisan and Bobon.

As for the Sputnik vaccine, since only one site is accredited to administer the Russian vaccine, Ibones said it will take at least five days to completely finish the inoculation of all available vaccines. /rcg