Is anyone a vaccinator?

[Hopefulvolunteer]

I’ve had my interview to be a volunteer vaccinator, and I passed! But I found out that you don’t get vaccinated yourself, to do it. And a relative of mine as a nurse who has been into a few different centres says the PPE is crap, some centres not very safe and some better and it would probably make it too unsafe for me in my day job as a nanny, to do.

I’m fairly gutted. But my bosses were worried enough about it before, only the thought of me being vaccinated first was enough to leave them a bit more open to it.

Has anyone got any experience with it or knowledge that could help please? I’m keen to do my bit, have the skills to be able to help etc. But I don’t want to be dangerous or ruin risking the relationship I have with my bosses.

I work in a surgery running a vaccine centre, and we are vaccinating all our volunteers, the Administrators and car park attendants with any leftovers after each clinic. The vaccinators were all done in the first week.
Any vaccinators not already employed by us are all recent retirees etc, but we have vaccinated all of them.
I would ask if they are allowing the ‘spares’ to be used this way.

I was vaccinated as a volunteer when there was a leftover dose.

Thanks for your reply. I’m not assigned to a centre yet, I have to complete all the training before I find out where I could be so I’m not able to ask any centre directly. I did wonder if I was to go back to them and say I’m unable to do it unless vaccinated, if it would make any difference but I’m assuming not. The irony is that I have no particular rush to be vaccinated generally, and am more than happy to be at the bottom of the pile but if it means I can do it, and be safer to work then that’s much better.

I was also vaccinated at the end of my first shift with a leftover dose (greeter & car park marshall).

Same at ours - leftover doses went down a priority list and volunteers done fairly rapidly through first week.

This was when we were a) doing Pfizer which had less scope to hold vials over to the next day b) we were conservative in bookings as did not know level of DNAs and how much wastage eg from errors drawing up, discard of vials with particulates etc c) when it was realised you could get 6 doses out,
We have far fewer leftover doses now as a result of the above.

d) we did not have a system to call last minute attendees. However my centre would still consider vaccinators a priority for leftover doses but we would probably need reminding as by now we are assuming everyone is pretty much done as an HCP anyway. We would not mind someone asking.

My centre is well run, PPE available and feels safe.

That’s good to hear, thanks. What sort of PPE do you get?

I thought this. I thought it was absolutely outrageous that a vaccination wasn’t part of the role, but then I figured that many would likely apply, get the jab, then never turn up again.

Oh that’s true, I can’t believe I never thought of that 🤦‍♀️

I agree you should be vaccinated as a volunteer. But it’s not yet known how much the vaccines reduce transmission so you could still pass it i. To your employers anyway. If you were my babys nanny I wouldn’t want you volunteering and working for me for that reason.