Volunteers at Ulverston Community Health Centre have explained why they are helping to deliver the Covid-19 vaccine to local residents.
Starting last Friday, eligible patients have been guided through the centre by volunteers as they receive the jab from the centre’s health workers.
Neil Fleming, alongside Caroline Smith, has helped recruit 160 volunteers for the vaccine rollout, mostly through their Facebook group, Ulverston Self Isolation Group.
The pair have set up a system where there will be morning and afternoon shifts, which will each have two shift leaders and nine volunteers working during them, equating to 22 volunteers every day.
Neil said: “The volunteers have a good understanding of the importance of the vaccination programme.
“It’s not often that we all come together and all pull in the same direction as a community.
“It is nice to see the people coming in to get their vaccinations and seeing their relief at receiving the jab.”
One volunteer, Chris Harvey, who worked the first shift on Friday afternoon, has highlighted the positive atmosphere at the centre.
He added: “I wanted to do something to help, I’m not working currently and I’ve got time to do something useful.
“It was so good to see everyone being so positive about it and there was a really nice atmosphere.
“There is certainly now a feeling that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
Another volunteer, Paul Glass, said: “Everyone in the world has had a difficult time during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Now that the vaccines are available, I think it’s probably one of the top priorities for the government to deliver this programme and I thought: ‘What can I do to help achieve this programme?’
“It’s a national issue and every community needs to do their bit.
“The sooner we get everyone vaccinated the better and we can start getting back to normality.”
Vaccinations are also taking place at the Alfred Barrow Health Centre and Millom’s Waterloo House GP Surgery.
After her mother had received the jab at the Barrow centre, Julie, revealed she was inspired to help vaccinate the community.
Julie said: “We were so relieved once my mum had her vaccine in Barrow, that I really wanted to help others to get theirs as soon as possible.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel