Pharmacists are regularly faced with requests for vaccination of Covid-19 at home. The latter come from fragile patients who often have not been able to benefit from their booster dose because they cannot move around. So far, this issue has not been resolved. Pierre-Olivier Variot, president of the USPO, explains how to remedy this situation.
- Out of 1,528 responses, 71% of pharmacists indicate that they have already been faced with a request for home vaccination.
- In 56.9% of cases, the pharmacist was unable to entrust this request to another healthcare professional authorized to vaccinate at home.
- Pharmacists are asking the government for permission to perform these vaccinations at home.
– Why doctor: are pharmacists really prohibited from vaccinating patients at home?
Pierre-Olivier Variot – To date, the texts do not authorize pharmacists to visit patients to administer the vaccine against Covid-19. But they don’t forbid it either. When in doubt, we refuse to vaccinate at home.
Problem: in some cases, vulnerable people are not cared for by nurses. When they are, these caregivers do not want to inject them with a booster dose, this is what I see during my discussions with nurses’ offices or with patients.
Today, therefore, there is a hole in the racket. The people who most need to receive a booster dose cannot have access to vaccination, even though they really want to benefit from it. We must quickly find a simple and quick solution for vulnerable French people to be vaccinated.
– In the survey conducted by the USPO, more than half of pharmacists received requests for vaccination of Covid-19 at home. Some of them confessed to having vaccinated fragile patients at home. But what do they really have to deal with in this complex situation?
If pharmacists agree to vaccinate a patient at home, they find themselves in a situation where they transgress the texts. On the other hand, these health professionals can ask the patient to come and be vaccinated at their pharmacy. In this situation, they have to organize his pick-up and order a taxi. But in practice, this is not possible! This is why the Union of Dispensary Pharmacists’ Unions (USPO) is asking the government to give permission for home vaccination by pharmacists, who must be as close as possible to fragile patients. One could imagine that, when there is no alternative solution, the regional health agencies (ARS) could authorize pharmacists to visit vulnerable people, especially when it comes to injecting them with a booster dose. .
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