WINDSOR, ONT. -- Local paramedics have started visiting the homes of vulnerable residents to administer COVID-19 vaccines for those unable to travel to the region’s mass vaccination clinics.

Paramedics with the Essex-Windsor EMS Vulnerable Patient Navigator (VPN) team vaccinated 44 residents of an apartment building on Thursday. These residents are 80 years and older and have pre-registered for the vaccination clinics but who would have experienced difficulty accessing the sites.

The residents received their first Moderna vaccine dose and will be scheduled to receive their second. The VPN team will continue to vaccinate eligible residents in the same apartment building and will then move on to another.

The Essex-Windsor EMS VPN team is working with the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit to identify higher risk seniors in the region living in their homes.

Essex EMS

“They’re doing a great job, they’ve started already, our nurses have also started and you know, we’re dependant on the vaccine so we’re carefully sharing our vaccine for all of these different avenues that are getting released in our community,” WECHU CEO Theresa Marentette said.

The health unit’s nurses have started a small mobile team to work with some of the ‘senior homes’ in the community.

Currently, there are mass-vaccine sites at the WFCU Centre in Windsor and the Nature Fresh Farms Recreation Centre in Leamington. More sites for seniors 80 and older are set to open at the St. Clair College SportsPlex and downtown at Windsor Hall (former Windsor Star building).

The County of Essex says another site is also expected to open soon at the Libro Centre in Amherstburg.

More information regarding the mass vaccination program and roll-out in Windsor-Essex is available on the WECHU website.