As residents rolled up their sleeves to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, often it was the doctors, nurses and health-care workers from Southlake Regional Health Centre on the other end tirelessly administering them.
Southlake's team began vaccinating long-term care and hospital workers in December 2020 at a clinic at the Seniors Centre in Newmarket. As eligibility expanded, they moved to the Ray Twinney Recreations Complex in March to begin administering thousands of doses daily to the general public.
Anne Forsey, a registered nurse, was the manager of the vaccine clinic.
“The vaccinators (and) the pandemic support workers very, very much felt they were a part of a bigger thing," she said. "They may have been at a check-in desk but they realized their processes were meaning that people were becoming safer.”
The team included retired health-care workers, hospital doctors, family physicians and more.
“They very much loved working there. It was very gratifying work. Patients were so grateful,” Forsey said.
She said during her time at the clinic, she felt that the community was grateful to be there, too.
“We left sticky notes at the back for those exiting and the glass barriers for the hockey rink were covered in the stickers and thank yous and notes of patients,” she said. “If you were tired at the end of the day, you could just look up and see all of those thank you notes that we were plastered all over the walls, it made a huge difference. You couldn’t even see through the glass anymore.”
When patients would arrive, they often were so happy to be there and were thankful to all the staff for providing vaccines, which to many were seen as a light at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic's long tunnel.
Forsey said those who attended the clinic also praised them for how easy it was to get there, the location in Newmarket, the abundance of free parking, and the smoothness of the process once a few early kinks were ironed out.
“The Town of Newmarket were amazing partners with us to sort of keep the flow going and making sure that people were in order and on time. They were a huge help,” she said.
As more people got their shots and the province reopened, Southlake staff were needed back at the hospital. They transferred responsibility of the clinic to York Region Public Health on July 1, 2021.
In the six months that Southlake was operating the clinic, Forsey said they administered more than 163,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses.
“It was a lot of work and it was long days but the staff really, very much felt like they were contributing,” she said.
