New vaccine centre to be set up at Midgale Hospital
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A VACCINATION centre is being set up at Migdale Hospital, Bonar Bridge, it has been announced.
Kate Kenmure, NHS Highland district manager for Sutherland, said the vaccination centre would be open “in a few months”.
“Vaccinations are coming out of GP surgeries and the health board is going to undertake them,” she told a meeting of Dornoch Community Council.
She did not say whether residents in north and north-west Sutherland would be required to have their vaccinations at Migdale - the Northern Times has asked for clarification.
However she acknowledged that some residents would face transport difficulties.
“We need to look at how we are going to support people to get there and back,” she said, going on to suggest that community transport could be used.
Ms Kenmure is currently attending community council meetings to ask for feedback over health needs in the area, including the future use of Midgale Hospital, which has traditionally served as a geriatric facility.
The hospital’s Strathy ward reopened earlier this year to general patients after a two-year closure, due to the coronavirus pandemic and the difficulty in recruiting staff.
Concern over its closure had been expressed by community councils.
NHS Highland promised last year to carry out an extensive community engagement exercise over the future use of the hospital.
Ms Kenmure said the vaccination centre would be “a use of the building”.
She revealed that a consultation session recently held at the Lawson Memorial Hospital, Golspie, on NHS Highland’s five-year strategy “Together We Care - with you, for you” had been poorly attended.
Meanwhile, she has told community councils that the Minor Injuries Unit, located in the Cambusavie Unit next to the Lawson Memorial Hospital, should reopen by the end of October following the completion of work to create a separate entrance for the unit.
