Just some of the incredible RBWH Pharmacy team
The RBWH Pharmacy team has been working hard both behind the scenes and on the frontline with the hospital’s COVID vaccination response.
The team has been involved in all stages of the vaccine rollout at RBWH and STARs, from setting up the vaccine hubs, developing protocols, training staff, organising drug receipt, maintaining cold-chain, preparation of pre-filled syringes, distribution of doses to the clinic, as well as providing a training pharmacist vaccinator to the RBWH vaccine clinic daily.
RBWH has 14 trained pharmacist vaccinators who have been staffing the vaccination clinic from 8am-4pm Monday-Friday. Pharmacist Andrew Hale was the first pharmacist in Queensland to administer a COVID-19 vaccination – an exciting achievement for the pharmacy team and RBWH as a whole!
In the second week of the vaccine clinic opening, the team prepared more than 2,1000 vaccine doses for administration and are now preparing an average of 500 doses per day.
The vaccine arrives in multi-dose vials (MDV’s) containing eight doses in each vial. The pharmacy team of technicians, pharmacists and interns draw the individual doses into syringes ready for the vaccinators to administer. This makes it faster, safer and easier for the multi-disciplinary team of doctors, nurses and pharmacists in the vaccination clinic. The cancer care pharmacy staff have used their extensive experience in aseptic preparation to prepare doses, as well as training the intern pharmacist workforce.
RBWH Director of Pharmacy Ian Coombes said he is proud of the pharmacy team’s contribution to this vital activity.
“It is amazing work from all elements of the pharmacy team, and very pleasing to see the entire pharmacy workforce: assistants, interns, pharmacists working shoulder to shoulder; to the full extent of their scope of practice, with our nursing and medical colleagues on the frontline of the fight against COVID-19.”
Many pharmacists have been instrumental in the setup of the pharmacy service including Infectious Diseases Pharmacist Kim Ta, Cancer Care Production Team Leader Grant Partridge, Procurement Team Leader Michelle Williams and with overall leadership provided by Assistant/ Director of Pharmacy Andrew Hale and Ian Coombes.
Well done to the entire team involved.