Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen has renewed calls for the Government to set up a mass vaccination centre in Teesside following the news that the Darlington centre will open next week.
Since the rollout of the vaccination programme got underway in late December, Mayor Houchen has been pushing the Government to set up a dedicated centre where Teessiders can get the lifesaving jab. In recent weeks the metro mayor has had a number of meetings with Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi to discuss the issue and make the case for a local jab centre.
As part of the Government’s mass vaccination programme the NHS has set up a number of different centres to get the jabs into people’s arms, including hospital hubs at James Cook University Hospital and North Tees Hospital as well as in GP surgeries and two high street pharmacies, but so far, no large-scale mass vaccination centre has been established.
In his discussions with ministers and health officials Mayor Houchen has put forward a number of sites including the Riverside Stadium.
Mayor Houchen said: “I’m pleased that the Darlington vaccination centre will be opening very soon, but we still need a centre in Teesside that’s why in the last week I’ve had a number of meetings with Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi to push the case for getting a centre up a running in Teesside as quickly as possible.
“The NHS and our Armed Forces have done an absolutely phenomenal job across Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool to get all of the over-70s and the extremely vulnerable vaccinated. But, with the Government now having an even more ambitious jab target of giving every adult in the country their first coronavirus vaccine shot by July 31st even more centres will be needed.
“With hundreds of thousands of jabs now needing to be administered in a very short period of time, now is the right time for a dedicated mass vaccination centre to be opened in Teesside.
“Teesside smashed every target in the first phase of the vaccine rollout, becoming the quickest region to give the jab to all over 80s, and with a new jab centre we can do the same again with the wider population.”
