29 June 2021

“Be brave and have the jab”

Disability advocate Tara Elliffe, 33, has a simple message.

"My message is to be brave and have the jab. It's okay. Just do it," she said.

Tara got vaccinated at the Vaccination Centre at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital run by Sydney Local Health District. Tara is on Down Syndrome NSW’s Advisory Board and is a member of the Council for Intellectual Disability’s advocacy committee. She is also on the City of Sydney’s Inclusion (Disability) Panel.

Tara shared her experience in a video with Sydney Local Health district. You can watch the video and read about her experience here.

We are looking forward to sharing some more videos and stories of people with disability sharing their COVID-19 vaccination experience. Look out for them in future Disability provider alerts in the next few weeks.

Let us know if you have a story that you would like to have included in the alert by emailing the Vaccine Taskforce team.

Provider-led hubs

The department is working with contracted commercial vaccine providers and disability service providers to establish provider-led vaccination hubs. These hubs will vaccinate people with disability in phase 1a and workers in residential disability accommodation.

These provider-led hubs have had a large amount of interest in bookings from disability providers. If you are unable to attend a hub, you should give advance notice to the hub operators. This will allow the hub to efficiently vaccinate people with disability in phase 1a without prolonged disruptions. 

New In-Depth Patient Assessment for a COVID-19 Vaccine

On 18 June 2021, the Australian Government introduced two new Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) items (10660 and 10661). These two new items are to support general practitioners and other medical practitioners. The two new MBS items provide in-depth clinical assessments of patients aged 50 years and over. This assessment is in regards to the patient’s individual health risks and benefits associated with receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. This assessment is available to people with disability.

Further information on the in-depth patient assessment items is in the Item descriptors and Fact Sheet.

Phase 1B General Practice Vaccine Rollout

The Australian Government opened a targeted Expression of Interest process for general practices from 27 March 2021 to 31 March 2021. This was done to identify up to 900 additional general practices in and around areas with limited access to the AstraZeneca vaccine. Eligible practices began administering vaccines from 21 June.

Use the eligibility checker to find your nearest vaccination clinic location.

Expression of Interest (EOI) for general practices to administer Pfizer

On 4 June 2021, general practices participating in the COVID-19 Vaccination Program were invited to indicate their interest in administering the Pfizer vaccine. This would be in addition to their current administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine. We expect that all participating general practices who meet the Pfizer site requirements will get the opportunity to administer the Pfizer vaccine by October 2021.

A limited number of these practices may be invited to commence from July in areas of need, based on vaccine supply.

Sharing the provider alert with staff

This provider alert aims to ensure disability service providers have all the latest information about the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines for people with disability. The information provided would also be useful to keep frontline disability workers informed about any changes or where to find information. We encourage you to share this alert with staff at all levels.

Disability worker meeting

The Department of Health hosted a disability worker meeting on Thursday 17 June 2021. The department will publish a recording of the meeting on the disability worker page next week. We will provide the video link in next week’s publication. The meeting had more than 120 participants who asked the panel a wide range of questions. These questions covered a large number of topics about the vaccines and the roll-out of vaccines to people with disability and disability workers. It was a very interactive session.

The Department of Health website has further resources to answer questions about COVID-19 vaccines. There are resources for disability workers, people with disability and disability service providers. The National coronavirus and COVID-19 vaccine helpline is also available if you need information about COVID-19 or COVID-19 vaccines. Call 1800 020 080.

Read the source Disability Provider Alert from the Department of Health website