DOTHAN, Ala. – Monday, is the first day of Alabama extending the vaccine eligibility to those 65 and older and certain frontline essential workers. One of the eight mass clinics in the state of Alabama is being held right here in Dothan.
The goal at these mass vaccine clinics is to administer 1,000 COVID vaccines a day, Monday through Friday of this week. There are over 50 volunteers at Southeast Health who worked all day Monday to help accomplish that. As of 5:00 Monday evening the hospital had distributed close to 800 vaccines, that’s about quadruple than what they usually administer.
Patients who have an appointment to get the vaccine are to show up at their appointment time, do not show up early.
Taylor Williams, Vice President of Southeast Health Medical Group, recommends carpooling to help speed up the process in reducing the number of cars that come through.
Southeast Health is fully booked with appointments this week for the mass clinic. Those who are on the waitlist will not be seen this week.
“We still have supply in order to cover most of our waitlist, if not all of our waitlist here at Southeast Health,” Williams said. “The main reason for moving off of the waitlist is for us to be able to catch up, be able to conduct this mass vaccination week of 5,000 vaccinations here and from there next week we’ll be able to start to accommodate the waitlist with the still first doses that we have on supply here.”
Williams asks those who are on the wait list to be patient. Those who got the vaccine today say getting registered and getting the vaccine took about 5 to 10 minutes total. From there you had to sit and be monitored about an additional 15 minutes.
Southeast Health launched a new patient portal where patients can schedule a vaccine. By downloading the Southeast Health My Chart app and create an account to make an appointment. This will also shares test results and other patient information to the users account.
