School was out for summer, but former Junior Infants, First Year Students and their parents and school principals were determined to do their part and complete the immunisation programme for school-aged children across North Dublin. Over 6,000 children attended the CHO Dublin North City and County (DNCC) immunisation hub at the National Show Centre in Swords, Co Dublin this July.

Des O’Flynn, Head of Primary Care said: “We’ve taken the learning from Covid-19 testing and our assessment hubs and by using Swiftqueue technology for booking and streamlining our processes, we were able to hold vaccination clinics.  We set up  immunisation bays and we were able to  provide the immunisations safely – all within national public health infection and prevention guidelines.”

Michelle Forde, General Manager, Primary Care added:  “The collaboration and support  was impressive.  Within our own services,  a wide team of health professionals   pulled together and are working in partnership to complete immunisations for academic year 2019-20, which were paused due to the pandemic. The focus and care they brought to each child, while implementing this very efficient process has been impressive.”

Essene Cassidy, Director of Public Health Nursing said  “it has been  so important  to ensure that the first year students complete their HPV vaccination programme and receive their meningitis booster vaccination and that the junior infants receive their 4 in 1 and MMR booster vaccinations, as this protect them from these preventable illnesses, meningitis and measles in particular. My own daughter attended here and as a mother, the process worked really well, everyone was very friendly and professional and she had a safe and positive vaccination experience”

Gwen Regan, Infection Prevention and Control Nurse Specialist added:  “Immunisation protects children and also ensures  that the wider community are protected from vaccine preventable diseases.”

This is part of an overall national effort currently underway across community healthcare organisations. Feedback from parents on social media and in person was incredibly positive.

Mellany McLoone, Chief Officer, CHO DNCC noted: “The teamwork in Swords includes not only our own staff and health professionals, but also parents and carers, who made great efforts to attend and were patient and supportive of the measures in place for everyone’s safety. I would like to thank the parents, carers and children for the part they’ve played by taking part in the immunisation programme, which benefits both themselves and also helps protect the health of our community.”