Date Published: 18/05/2021
ARCHIVED - Murcia region changes vaccination system to resolve queueing and travel issues
ARCHIVED ARTICLE Vaccines will be given in local health centres and in 19 larger vaccination points
Image: Ayto Torre Pacheco
The vaccination campaign in the Murcia region is slowly moving into a new phase as the number of vaccines delivered to Spain increases and after weeks of discussion and trying to find the most effective mechanism by which the larger blocks of the population can be vaccinated, the Murcia region has finally opted for a change in strategy and will now carry out the remainder of the vaccination programme in 19 different locations, instead of the nine major vaccination points trialled in the last few weeks.
A new Mass Vaccination Protocol has been prepared by the Ministry of Health, and details that immunizations will be undertaken in local health centres in municipalities with less than 20,000 residents and in the remainder, 19 mass vaccination points will handle the larger groups of the population.
This will be the case in Águilas, Alcantarilla, Alhama de Murcia, Archena, Caravaca de la Cruz, Cartagena, Cieza, Jumilla, Lorca, Mazarrón, Molina de Segura, Murcia (Nueva Condomina and Palacio de los Deportes), San Javier, Santomera, Torre Pacheco, Las Torres de Cotillas, Totana and Yecla.
The only two exceptions are in La Unión and San Pedro del Pinatar where residents must go to Cartagena and San Javier.
This resolves the complaints of local mayors in which the population has been forced to travel to other areas for vaccinations and aims to cope with the increased rate of vaccinations as the campaign moves onto the age groups with the largest populations.
This week, first vaccinations of those aged 51-59 have begun in several municipalities, but as this is the largest age group yet tackled, is expected to take a little longer as supplies arrive.
Residents are yet again being urged to ensure their contact details have been updated at local health centres to ensure that they are contacted with appointments.
This latest document is the fruit of the problems experienced in the system to date; when the campaign first started, many patients had failed to update their contact details and older residents lacked the capacity to receive direct messaging with appointments, the result being that a large percentage were failing to arrive at scheduled appointments. When this was replaced with a system of calling all residents between a certain age band to attend on a specific day, huge queues formed and in some cases residents were left waiting for several hours.
The health service has now reverted to a system of telephoning to allocate appointments in an effort to minimise the queueing.
One exception is Puerto Lumbreras where a new system enabling patients to pre-book their own appointments on line through the Murcia salud webpage is being trialled. This system has functioned well in other areas of Spain, enabling workers to pre-book an appointment themselves in advance, in order to fulfil their own work requirements and receive their vaccines.
Should this system prove successful, it will be progressively introduced into other municipalities.
According to the latest data published by the national Ministry of Health on Monday evening, 403,635 residents of the region have been given at least one dose of Covid vaccine and 190,707 are fully immunised.