A Quezon City councilor is calling on authorities to use unspent COVID – 19 funds for hiring more vaccinators.
This will boost the number of personnel delivering the jabs and keep their performances at par with safety standards, according to District 5 councilor Karl Castelo.
“Our frontliners don’t need more stress. What they need is more support. More vaccinators will hasten the delivery of jabs properly and safely.”
Based on data released by the Department of Budget (DBM), more than P168 billion in Covid-related funds remained untouchef by various state agencies.
To use the unspent budget, a new legislation would be required.
“If the government has such funds available for spending, we might as well utilize them for the more pressing needs of our vaccination sites,” Castelo said.
“What they badly need at the moment are additional medical frontliners led by vaccinators who are very few in numbers,” he added.
“If there is requirement for new law, then so be it. We should respond to the needs of vaccination facilities,” he said.
Castelo noted each inoculation sites usually have only five vaccinators at most to deliver the jabs to more than 500 people.
“So we’re talking about one vaccinator for 100 jabs which is not a very good ratio. I suspect any hand could already be trembling after injecting the 50th dose,” he explained.
Castelo’s proposal came amid isolated incidents of ‘miss jabs’ in inoculation sites where the doses were accidentally not injected by tired and overworked vaccinators.
Castelo noted each inoculation sites usually have only five vaccinators at most to deliver the jabs to more than 500 people.
“They (vaccinators) are people like us who have limitations. Our quality of our performance diminishes when those limitations are exceeded,” he said.
He junked baseless accusations that corruption is behind the unfortunate incidents as they are not helpful for the national vaccination program and the embattled frontliners.
“Our frontliners don’t need more stress. What they need is more support. More vaccinators will hasten the delivery of jabs properly and safely,” Castelo said.
