Hospital patients aged 70 years and over, are to be vaccinated in the hospital following a policy change. 

Galway Senator Sean Kyne had highlighted the case of an 89-year-old who had been in hospital for three weeks who had not been vaccinated, because under the t HSE policy up to now, she had to wait until she was discharged back to the community to receive the jab.

He raised the matter at the Oireachtas Health Committee last week questioning the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly about the vaccination policy within our hospitals.  Minister Donnelly concurred that it would make sense to vaccinate this age group in hospitals if they are patients, and promised to check the matter out.

Senator Kyne has now received confirmation from the CEO of the HSE, Mr Paul Reid that the policy has changed, and vaccinations have started for those aged 70 and over who are patients in  a hospital.

Senator Kyne says the development is welcome as he says some patients contracted COVID 19 in hospital and the fact that patients aged 70 and over wouldn’t be vaccinated, despite being clinically fine to receive the vaccine, made no sense.