News

On Thursday, November 25, Chief Sarah Page will end her secondment as the vaccination rollout lead for the Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit.

As of today, the Haldimand-Norfolk’s COVID-19 vaccine team, under the leadership of Chief Sarah Page, has administered 148,921 COVID-19 vaccines.

Vaccines have been administered in 97 settings across both counties, a significant accomplishment given that the jurisdiction is 2,858.5 square kilometres. These 97 settings include:

• 13 mass immunization clinic settings
• 24 long-term care homes, retirement homes, and congregate settings;
• 10 fire halls;
• 9 schools;
• 1 Indigenous community centre;
• 3 mobile clinics.

Sarah and the team also assisted community partners by building partnerships with all primary care practices, including supporting 24 primary care offices with offering vaccines in their offices, three hospital-based locations, 16 pharmacies, and ten workplace pop-up clinic locations.

The vaccination team coordinated and ran hundreds of clinics since the program launched in early January. Despite their small size, the HNHU took a strong lead in administering doses in the earliest eligibility phases, often completing eligible groups days or more ahead of the expected period and moving ahead with eligible and vulnerable groups. Clinic offerings included offering 51 clinics at the Cayuga Memorial Arena, as one of the first sites in the province to secure and mobilize the “Hockey Hub” model— 38 clinics at the Delhi Community Centre, and 28 clinics at the Vittoria District Community Centre.

To date there have been over 110 clinics at long-term care homes with over 4,200 doses administered in these settings, reaching the most vulnerable members of the community in a safe and timely way. Over 14,000 doses have been administered in physicians’ offices to date. Eighteen successful fire hall popup clinics were hosted in both regions, providing an opportunity to bring clinics into smaller communities and reach the rural populations of Haldimand and Norfolk who may have otherwise struggled to reach the clinics. In partnership with the Mississaugas of the New Credit, 13 on-reserve clinics have offered approximately 1,800 doses to date.

Also, under Sarah’s leadership and building on her longstanding relationships with emergency services in both counties, over 350 doses were administered to patients in their homes across the two counties. These decisions highlight the ways that Sarah and her team have emphasized equity, access, and supportive partnerships throughout the entirety of the COVID-19 vaccination program.

As a result of these and other well-thought-out decisions, the HNHU was able to pull itself from the lowest vaccination coverage in the province to the middle-of-the-pack, despite limited resources and a variety of unique hurdles for rural jurisdictions.

Sarah’s contributions to the COVID-19 vaccine program at the HNHU have been an incredible value to this community and did not go unnoticed. Both counties would like to thank Sarah Page for her time with the program and wish her success as she prepares to return to her permanent role as the Chief of Norfolk County Paramedic Services.