Eleven members of the Monadnock Community Hospital staff raced up to New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon to volunteer for the state’s first mass vaccination clinic.
The three-day clinic, held Saturday through Monday, saw thousands of New Hampshire residents receive their first COVID-19 vaccine shot, an effort put forth by state officials to speed up the vaccination process for those in Phase 1B who had scheduled appointments for later in the month and into May.
Last week, the state reached out to hospitals around New Hampshire seeking volunteers to help staff the site in Loudon and the response from those like Michael Greenough, community education and emergency preparedness specialist at MCH, was an immediate yes.
Greenough said he just wanted to help and would have done so in any capacity.
“I would have taken any job they needed filled, but my first choice was to vaccinate,” Greenough said.
On Monday, Greenough filled one of the roles that actually put the COVID-19 vaccine in New Hampshire residents’ arms and the experience left him with a lasting memory.
“The way I have been describing it to people is yesterday was the pay off day for all of us who went into healthcare,” Greenough said Tuesday. “For me, it was an honor to be there.”
During his shift, Greenough said he administered 40 to 50 doses and the response from those receiving the vaccine showed him how much it meant. One person gave them a thank you card and “there was one woman who started crying when she rolled down her window,” he said.
“It was like handing out winning lottery tickets,” Greenough said, who added if there were future mass vaccination sites set up he’d volunteer “any day of the week.”
Greenough said he heard there were a few hiccups earlier in the weekend, but by Monday the process went off without a hitch.
Hannah Ladeau, exercise is medicine coordinator at MCH, was heavily involved in the MCH staff vaccine rollout, from helping staff register in VAMS, coordinating supplies and clinic operations day of, and knew she could help with the mass vaccination site. When she arrived in Loudon on Monday, Ladeau expected to work in vaccine data support, but her experience with VAMS had her in a check-in role.
No matter where she was stationed, Ladeau was just happy to be a part of it all.
“That’s one of the reasons I signed up. We were making history doing this,” she said. “And I was just willing to help no matter what.”
While there was no playbook on how to vaccinate thousands of people in one day, Ladeau said it was inspiring to see it unfold.
“To see how they put it together was really eye opening,” she said.
Ladeau said she received a lot of thank yous and could tell how much the moment meant for those getting their shots.
“I think for a lot of people, they haven’t been out of the house much, doing the things they normally do,” she said. “And it’s been really stressful, it’s been very scary.”
She was only supposed to work from 6:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., but stayed a couple extra hours to fill in some gaps.
“And it was just really so cool to see how well it ran,” Ladeau said.
Christy-Sue Solomon, clinical education and emergency preparedness coordinator at MCH, also volunteered on Monday, serving in the role of initial screener to help get everything in order for residents before receiving their dose. She answered questions, checked identification and verified confirmation sheets.
Solomon also heard of some issues on Saturday and Sunday, but she described the process on Monday as slick.
“They had it set up very well,” she said. “By Monday, they really had everything down to a science.” She said the switch to paper data collection helped streamline the process and cut the wait times significantly.
Solomon said she was an immediate yes for volunteering, but with slots filling up quickly she was worried she was going to miss out on the opportunity. After helping with the injections of MCH employees at the hospital’s vaccination clinics, Solomon wanted to fill the same role for the site in Loudon, but those were all gone.
“There were so many people that wanted to help with the vaccination process,” she said. So she signed up for vaccine support, but was switched into her screener role due to her familiarity with the VAMS system. “It was the same computer program we had been using.”
Other MCH employees who volunteered at the site were Louise Danforth, Liza Drew, Samantha Bernstein, Sue Black, Linda Hurd, Bridgette Ferris, Emily Cooper and Jessica Johnson.
Solomon said people brought food for volunteers and expressed their thanks, but the most interesting question she got was when someone asked if they could take a victory lap after receiving the vaccine. The answer was no, but it’s not like Solomon didn’t want to take one herself.
“It was really nice to be able to be part of the process, ” she said. “It was really being a part of history.”