New South Wales disability services organisation Achieve Australia has launched a community vaccination campaign which will see 220 people with disability fully vaccinated within a month thanks to Sydney GP Dr Jamal Rifi.
The ‘I give a shot!’ campaign and subsequent media outreach was a result of staff and sector frustration about the vaccination roll out, CEO Jo-Anne Hewitt said.
“We wanted to let the community know that people with disability were still waiting for vaccinations, so we approached the media to share our concerns and raise awareness of the impact of the Delta strain of Covid for people with disability. We can’t begin to express our gratitude for the community support and especially to Dr Rifi and his team who donated the vaccines and brought them to our clients.”
For Dr Rifi, making this donation is part of his duty as a doctor and as a good citizen. “We are all responsible for keeping everyone safe and to do this we must protect the most vulnerable. People with disability are definitely vulnerable to the impact of this new strain of Covid,” he said.
“We encourage all members of the community to continue to share concerns about the Covid vaccination rollout with their local, state and federal member and to get vaccinated or register for vaccination as soon as they possibly can. To protect our most vulnerable and emerge from this pandemic, vaccination is really the only answer,” Hewitt said.