Private sector steps in with mass sites to boost vaccine rollout

Private sector vaccination sites are gearing up for a surge as the rollout opens to over-50s.

New mass sites are coming online and talks with the government to make it easier for uninsured people to use private sector facilities are well advanced.

Many private sites have been vaccinating over-50s who have registered on the electronic vaccinationdata system (EVDS) and are on medical aid. Vaccinations opened to them on Thursday, rather than the official July 15, to speed up the rollout.

This comes after many sites went quiet over the past four weeks as demand for jabs from the over-60s dwindled.

Some sites had no-show rates of up to 80%, with issues such as transport and the top-down EVDS booking system blamed for the lack of demand.

Estimates were that most urban over-60s with medical-aid cover were vaccinated at public and private sector sites within the first four weeks when the rollout opened to them.

Business for SA (B4SA), which is co-ordinating business’s efforts to support the vaccine rollout, has commissioned a survey to try to get to the bottom of the no-show problem and make sure maximum use is made of the extensive, and expensive, infrastructure the private sector has put in place to support the rollout.

This is also being boosted by a growing number of workplace sites that have opened. These will increase numbers now that the rollout has been expanded to younger people and workplace sites given the go-ahead to vaccinate those over 40.

B4SA had estimated that workplace sites could collectively vaccinate about 28,000 people a day. But Dr Lungi Nyathi, who is B4SA’s lead on workplace sites, estimates that these sites could administer even more than 50,000 daily doses. Nyathi is an executive of AfriCentric, a company in the health-care sector.

Dr Barry Kistnasamy, of the national department of health, said four pilot workplace sites began testing for vaccination services for workers last month. Three of these are in mining.

A taxi site in Gauteng started on Friday and over the next two weeks an Eskom site will open in Mpumalanga, as will sites at nine mines.

We will not turn away anyone who is registered and on medical aid.

—  Ahmed Banderker, CEO of AfroCentric, owner of Medscheme

There is a disproportionate number of sites in the mining sector because it has many workers and its sites have occupational health services, Kistnasamy said.

Another 145 sites selected by a joint B4SA/department of health team are being prepared.

Kistnasamy said discussions were under way with companies to get economies of scale in service delivery. The age bands in workplaces covered workers 40 years and older, he said. The government will cover payment for workers not on medical aid.

Private sites include those run by medical schemes, among them Discovery, Medscheme and Momentum Metropolitan, as well as private hospitals, independent pharmacists and pharmacy chains such as Dis-Chem and Clicks. While these sites are mainly serving those with medical aid, business is keen to ensure the facilities can also be made available to people without medical-aid cover.

“There is so much capacity in the private sector and it's really a shame not to be using this,” said Discovery’s Ron Whelan.

However, this requires an agreement with the government on how the private sites can be reimbursed by the state.

Talks have been under way. Whelan said this week there was now an agreement in principle that so long as an individual was scheduled by EVDS to a private-sector site, the state would reimburse.

However, that does not make provision for uninsured walk-ins. Business is still talking to the government about a model that would allow EVDS to book more uninsured people to private sites, and ensure private providers were reimbursed by the state.

More private sites have been opened to walk-ins, including those over 50.

“We will not turn away anyone who is registered and on medical aid, and we are waiting for messaging from the national department of health on this, as agreed via Business for SA,” said Ahmed Banderker, CEO of AfroCentric, which owns medical-aid administrator Medscheme and has six vaccine sites.

Banderker said that in the past two weeks the no-show rate had been more than 70% in some cases, in contrast with health workers where the show-up rate was over 70%.

He said more than 50% of those over 60 in urban areas had received vaccines, many of them at public sites. Some older people also could not get to sites where the EVDS had booked them.

Whelan said a Discovery mini-survey of its members who had not shown up for EVDS bookings found that 20% did not have transport. Others were not comfortable with the location, or could not make the appointed time. Transport issues were worse for uninsured people.

“The top-down EVDS allocation doesn't work for large sections of our population. People have to have the ability to select the location, date and time of their booking,” Whelan said.

Private-sector players have also partnered with the government on some of the rollout to essential public-service employees.

AfroCentric was chosen to inoculate the 180,000 police officers, of all ages, and will start doing it this week at about 100 mobile sites, Nyathi said.

Whelan said Discovery was vaccinating teachers at its new mass site at Gallagher Estate. It has also partnered with the Western Cape provincial government on the mass site at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. He said this was a model for vaccinating the insured and uninsured, with bookings or as walk-ins.

Nissan SA said it was vaccinating employees, former employees and service providers at its Rosslyn plant in Pretoria.

Fishing company Oceana Group said it had partnered with Netcare to begin vaccination sites at its facilities, including two in Cape Town, one in St Helena Bay on the west coast, and sites in Johannesburg and Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth).

The mines and many other employers are keen to vaccinate workers’ families and communities as well, but this may go ahead only once there is clarity on how to charge the state for uninsured people.