Pharmacists continue to provide vaccine, but the Pfizer shortage is about to have an impact

Jeff Green | Jan 12, 2022

Whenever politicians and public health officials speak about COVID vaccinations, they mention the help they have received from their healthcare “partners” from the hospital sector, family practice, paramedicine, and the pharmacy sector.

The pharmacy sector includes two, distinct groups. There are large corporations such as Shoppers Drugmart or Walmart, who have put their corporate resources to use as providers of testing and vaccination services, and there is the independent pharmacy sector where the pharmacists themselves have shouldered much of the burden.

Local pharmacies in Inverary, Harrowsmith, Verona, Sharbot Lake, Sydenham and Northbrook have all been providing vaccination services, which can be booked by anyone on the KFLAPH vaccine page.

Some of them have been offering the Moderna vaccine and some have been offering Pfizer, each of which is available for different populations and requires different protocols to administer.

From the start of the vaccine program in March of last year, through a pilot program with the AstraZeneca vaccine in KFL&A pharmacies, pharmacists have been left scrambling at times. Often, the programs have been announced by the Ontario government before the pharmacies were given all the details, or a supply of vaccine.

“It has been a pretty wild ride,” said Leonard Chan of Inverary Pharmasave, “and we are getting pretty tired at this point.”

Inverary Pharmasave has cleared their wait list for vaccine at this time, but supply chain issues continue to be a concern.

“We have been using the Pfizer vaccine from the start and we have set up our system to follow all of the protocols for Pfizer, which are different for each vaccine,” he said, “but when our current supply runs out, we don’t know when we will get more. We might order the Moderna vaccine, but that will add even more complications for us,” he said.

When the pandemic began, the Inverary Pharmasave was less than two years old, and Chan was just thinking about hiring a second pharmacist to help him handle his growing clientele and give him a break from some of the long hours he had been working.

“I have hired a pharmacist, which is working out well, but we need two of us here whenever we are vaccinating people, so it has not meant much of a break for me,” he said.

The beleaguered staff at the Sharbot Lake Pharmasave have also been at it since the AstraZeneca rollout, and are providing Pfizer jabs at this time. Over Christmas, one of the staff members at the pharmacy started building a Christmas wreath with spent vials of vaccine, which now has pride of place on a wall behind the dispensing counter. The current total number of vaccine doses delivered is posted above the wreath.

As of this week, only pediatric doses are available at the Sharbot Lake Pharmasave, as the Pfizer supply is running low.

Sarah Swanson, the pharmacist, said that she will likely wait for more of the Pfizer vaccine to become available instead of ordering Moderna.

“The staff need a break,” she said, “we will wait until the Pfizer supply comes back.”

Because they have been using Pfizer, both the Sharbot Lake and Inverary pharmacies supplied first doses for 5-11 year-old children, and they would like to be able to provide the second dose for those children when they become eligible.

The Harrowsmith Pharmasave and Northbrook Guardian stores are also providing the Pfizer vaccine. The Verona Pharmawell Drugmart and Sydenham DrugSmart Pharmacy have the Moderna vaccine available for people who are over 30 years old.