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Vaccine Clinic Offers Safety for High-Risk Patients

The clinic, which began about two months ago, was originally intended as a place for patients who had had an allergic reaction to their first dose of vaccine, but were still advised to get a second one.

Closeup of a person receiving a vaccination in their arm.
(Dreamstime/TNS)
Dreamstime/TNS
(TNS) - Maggie Mulcahy is in a situation she never dreamed she would be in.

"If anybody had told me I would have to navigate being treated for cancer during a pandemic at the age of 37, I would have thought they were crazy," said Mulcahy, who lives in Trumbull .

In February, Mulcahy was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer and she started chemotherapy in March. She plans to have surgery in the summer, followed by radiation. "We're trying to stomp on this aggressively," she said.

Her cancer diagnosis means Mulcahy is at high risk of serious illness from COVID-19, so she said getting the vaccine was a must for her. But she worried about doing it safely.

"When you layer on all the (things) that could compromise my immune system just by going to a Walgreens or lining up in a gymnasium to get the shot, it really was concerning to me," Mulcahy said.

Then Mulcahy learned from her doctors that St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport offered a vaccine clinic for high-risk patients on Mondays. The clinic, which began about two months ago, was originally intended as a place for patients who had had an allergic reaction to their first dose of vaccine, but were still advised to get a second one.

Having a vaccine clinic at the hospital means that, if a patient gets a reaction, they're close to the emergency room and can be treated immediately, said Daniela Markelon , the pharmacist who oversees the high-risk clinic.

"It just makes them feel better," she said. "They feel safe here."

Then the clinic also began getting referrals for patients such as Mulcahy, who had conditions that put them at high risk for serious illness from COVID. That includes not just cancer patients, but also people older than 75, patients with heart conditions and others.

"It's hard (for high-risk people) to stand in line," said outpatient pharmacy manager Eugenia Christakos . "It's hard to be around a lot of other people. This is a nice, calm environment where there's not a lot of chaos."

Markelon said patients are brought in one at a time, and told to wait between 30 minutes and an hour to see if they have a reaction. She said some patients can wait a little longer than an hour if they want.

Mulcahy went to the clinic Monday morning for her first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and was pleased by the experience. "I felt safe," she said. "I wasn't waiting in a long line. It was quite remarkable for me to get there and get it done."

The clinic still gets its share of people who had allergic reactions to their first dose, including Christine Lucsky of Bethel , who also received her vaccine on Monday. She said, when she got her first dose, she had numbness and tingling in her arm within 20 minutes, and numbness in her face within three hours.

Lucsky ended up spending three hours in an emergency room. She ended up being fine, and her doctor still recommended that she get her second dose.

Given her experience with the first dose, she was advised to go to the high-risk clinic. Lucsky said she stayed at the clinic an hour after getting her second dose on Monday, and had no reaction. But she was still comforted by getting the vaccination done at the hospital.

"I was very hesitant in going back for the vaccine," Lucsky said. "But going to the hospital, where I knew somebody was available, made me much more comfortable."

Christakos said, so far, the clinic has been well-received. "It's been working out great," she said. "Most people are so happy to be here. It's a nice alternative."

For information about the high-risk clinic, call Hartford HealthCare's vaccine line at 860-827-7690.

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