THE Tamworth Aboriginal Medical Service (TAMS) is doing its best to get the local Indigenous community vaccinated, giving hundreds of jabs in the last week.
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The service had been witnessing a steady increase in the number of people coming in to receive the vaccination, and that culminated in a huge turn up to walk-in clinic on Saturday.
Staff were stunned as 240 showed up throughout the day to receive the vaccine, showing much of the original hesitancy surrounding it has dissipated.
Damion Brown is one of the executives at TAMS, and said it was extraordinary to see such a strong response on the day.
"The [vaccination] rates for us have been pretty stable, but we did 240 at a walk-in clinic so we got pretty well overwhelmed I suppose," he said
"Which is good, it's a good response and our clinic is doing Pfizer vaccinations four days a week and AstraZeneca one day a week and also outreaching to Gunnedah."
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Mr Brown admitted they weren't sure how many people to expect for the walk-in clinic, but weren't anticipating that many.
Given its success, he said the service will look at doing it again as it was clearly something the community wanted as the statewide outbreak grows.
"It's easier for us to organise and it's well structured," he said.
"It's about the western stuff like Dubbo and Wilcannia, that's probably affected the local community more than the Sydney stuff."
He said the service currently has a long waiting list and can take a while to answer phone calls, but is urging the public to remain patient.
Mr Brown said the staff would do their best to assist the community with their health needs, but would of course be prioritising Indigenous patients and their families.
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