NICHOLAS COUNTY. WV (WOAY) – On Friday Summersville Regional Medical Center and the Nicholas County Health Department teamed up to provide vaccines to seniors over the age of sixty-five. This was the first community wide vaccine clinic and organizers say it required a team partnership to pull it off.
“We really see this as a full partnership,” said President and CEO of Summersville Regional Medical Center Karen Bowling. “Everyone working together making sure we have a smooth process and it really does take everyone to make these things work to the advantage of the population here in Nicholas County. So we are excited to be part of it.”
The clinic was held via appointment only with the patients coming from different waiting lists. Morning patients received their first doses of the Pfizer vaccine while afternoon patients received their second doses. The clinic also had a mobile health unit to vaccinate those who couldn’t get out of their cars. RN Administrator Kelley Amick says the senior patients have been extremely grateful to receive their vaccines.
“They are so grateful,” said Nicholas County Health Department RN Administrator Kelley Amick. “I really believe that some of these elderly people who have been isolated the last ten months would literally go to the moon to get a vaccine if they needed to do that.”
Organizers also said that the community was coming together to bring people to the clinic to get vaccinated. The clinic planned to vaccinate two hundred people in the morning and another two hundred people in the afternoon. However, they also planned to get every extra dose out of the vials that they could.
“We have people that specifically all they do is draw it up being very careful to ensure they get every dose out,” Bowling said. “We think that is the best practice way to do it because these people who do it are used to doing it and they are very careful about getting the extra doses and we are very thankful for that.”
Health officials ask people to continue to be patient with the vaccine distributions.
