MONTREAL -- Residents at Maimonides Geriatric Centre are to be among the first in Quebec to receive the COVID-19 vaccines when the province starts distributing the first 2,000 doses.
A daughter of one resident, however, said families have been given little to no detail about the immunization program, and residents are worried about how the centre will manage the immunization program.
"We're short-staffed," said Joyce Shanks of the Maimonides Family Advocacy Group. "People are not getting showered. People are not getting dressed. People are not getting toiletted. How are they going to handle potential secondary effects when they are vaccinating our families, our loved ones? What are they going to do? We deserve to know the answer to that."
Shanks and other families had hoped that a town hall meeting scheduled for Thursday would help them answer those and other questions, but it was postponed.
The west-central health and social services centre (CIUSSS) said it cannot spare the time for the town hall with the immunization program unveiling so quickly.
"As you can imagine, this is a complex undertaking with a very short timeline that involves the efforts of many of our health-care experts," a statement from the CIUSSS reads. "Reluctantly, we have also had to postpone the virtual Town Hall meeting that was to take place tomorrow (Thursday), because many of the participants are key professionals who are now needed for the vaccination campaign."
The CIUSSS adds that the priority is to contact staff, residents and family and answer questions and receive consent for vaccination.
