Stars shine at STARS Pfizer vaccination clinic

Our Community and Oral Health team are playing a significant role in supporting the COVID-19 vaccine rollout across Metro North.

Community and Oral Health Director of Pharmacy Kerry Feilding said the directorate had overseen the setup and running of the Surgical Treatment and Rehabilitation Services (STARS) Pfizer vaccination clinic.

“As of April, more than 17,000 vaccinations have now been administered at STARS, hitting high gear with 785 Pfizer vaccines administered in one day, and with consistent daily averages around 600 doses at the Herston site,” she said.

“In the past two months we have overseen the delivery and implementation of the specialised Ultra-Low Temp freezers, fridges, mobile vaccination storage fridges and vaccine preparation areas at STARS.

“Under the direction of Mary Wheeldon (Director of COVID Operations), our pharmacists work hand in hand with nursing, administration and medical teams to ensure a very efficient professional and safe vaccine experience.”

The vaccination teams have been assembled rapidly with pharmacists having international experience in vaccine management and including local community and hospital pharmacists.

Community and Oral Health Team Lead Pharmacist and Assistant Director Anne-Marie Parisi said the Community and Oral Health Pharmacy team, in collaboration with the Baxter education team, perfected the methodology for mass vaccine preparation.

“Our Pharmacy passed their rigorous accreditation and commissioning simulation along with the complete STARS team,” she said.

“The Pfizer vaccine handling requires a very high degree of technical ability due to its fragility and storage parameters.

“It also requires precise dilution and mixing in order to accurately extract six doses from every vial, thus ensuring there is no wastage of any Pfizer vaccine from our hub production centre.”

Mrs Parisi said it was a credit to our pharmacists who continued to ensure no wastage, day in and day out.

Dr Feilding said while we expected many changes ahead with this unprecedented vaccine rollout our agile service delivery team would confidently rise to the service needs of our community.

Community and Oral Health’s Pharmacy Service consists of a team of approximately 31 pharmacists, eight assistants and two administration staff who operate daily to provide service to 13 different community services which are geographically spread from the Brisbane River to Kilcoy.

At Brighton Health Campus and across our directorate’s mobile clinics have also administered more than 1,000 additional vaccinations.