The roll out of the Covid-19 vaccines is looking messy with high priority workers like South Auckland GPs being turned away, while DHB workers are vaccinated on a reportedly random ‘first-in first-served’ basis, National’s Covid-19 Response spokesperson Chris Bishop says.

“My understanding is that too many vaccines have been thawed each day, leading to doses of the scarce vaccine possibly being wasted.

“To avoid this, at the end of the day vaccine distribution centres are vaccinating lower priority DHB workers, but high priority cases like South Auckland GPs are missing out.

“Auckland DHB has advised staff not to go and get a vaccine unless called to do so, but some people have turned up anyway and received the vaccine and they’ve been told to try and send more people.

“This is sounding like a shambles. Nobody wants to see the vaccine wasted but there is clearly an issue in just randomly vaccinating anyone while high priority groups like South Auckland GPs miss out.

“I understand there is considerable anger within the Auckland medical community about this shambles.

“The Government needs to get a grip of the situation and make sure there is a clear process for vaccinating priority groups in order.”

Please share this BFD article so others can discover The BFD.

This article is a press release that has been published in full and un-edited by The BFD.