A bit healthy

I was back at the vaccination centre where I'm allowed to vaccinate this morning but ended up spending my five hours there outside welcoming people, distributing hand gel, checking that people didn't have covid symptoms and finding out their surnames so that I could direct them to the right place to collect their paperwork. I enjoy working out the origin of surnames and doing my very best to pronounce them correctly. That led to one entire exchange in French, which was unexpected practice for me, including having to guess a few covid-related words.

I also took it on myself to find out gently how people were feeling and that felt to me the most valuable part of my morning. Most were positive about having their injection but a few were apprehensive and I think the vaccination team overall handles that really well. Some concerns I could deal with immediately or by promising to meet someone at the exit for a thumbs-up but a few times I passed the message quietly along the line or called someone more experienced to intervene.

I continue to be utterly in awe of NHS staff, calmly coming outside to vaccinate the highly vulnerable person who had to stay in a cab, as well as the person who told me he wouldn't wear a face mask because he'd already had one vaccination and science proves that Covid is a Zionist conspiracy from which there have been no deaths. (I was interested that, in the circumstances, he'd actually turned up for his vaccination.)

I overheard one person on his way out telling his waiting partner how very impressed he'd been at the St John Ambulance volunteer who'd vaccinated him - calm, confident and accurate. Thinking he might have negative preconceptions about volunteers I went up, in my uniform, to tell him we'd all been trained. 'I know,' he said, 'I work for St John Ambulance and I trained the trainers.' My turn to be impressed: that he hadn't queue-jumped as he surely could have done and that he had enough faith in the cascaded training not to have been quietly vaccinated by a health professional.

I got back home shattered at 2pm and the XR doctor who stayed with me last night came in a few minutes later from having spent the morning trying, in vain, sadly, to meet the international health ministers with her letter (see yesterday). We shared lunch before she headed back to Bristol.

This building is a health centre where I don't volunteer.