The first physician to receive a vaccine onsite was the medical director of the hospital's COVID-19 assessment centre, Dr. Ian Cowan.
In addition to running a full family practice, Dr. Cowan has taken on the additional role of Medical Director for the COVID-19 Community Testing & Assessment Centre—a seven day a week responsibility over the last 12 months.
"During the pandemic, he has personally performed over 3,000 swabs to test for COVID-19 and has led the teams deployed into our district’s long-term care and retirement homes for on-site testing," says a hospital tweet. "Most recently Dr. Cowan was a part of the mobile assessment team deployed to test the residents at the Skyline – Lancelot Apartments as part of the outbreak management and is now assisting with the vaccine roll out in our hospital and community."
The North Bay Regional Health Centre has been allocated its first doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for staff and physician immunization," says Kim McElroy. Communications Manager.
"While we are thrilled to begin the process of vaccination, we do know that the first shipment will not be enough to vaccinate all our employees and physicians immediately. At this point exact timelines are unknown, however it will continue to be a phased approach based on allocations received from the province and administration of vaccine to the priority groups."
This morning the Health Centre started administering the vaccine to NBRHC health care workers in the provincial government’s highest priority category. There are 448 NBRHC HCWs in this category and this includes the Critical Care Unit and Emergency Department.
