HONESDALE, Pa. — Vaccine rollouts have been a challenge for many rural community health providers, including Wayne Memorial Health System.
Late last week, it was announced that three northeastern Pennsylvania health centers would be receiving their share of $11.7 million from the American Rescue Plan to expand access to vaccines.
"The focus of the money is on the vaccination, which is the prime part of our response now to the pandemic, but also in general, for overall response to service the medical needs related to the pandemic and COVID-19," said Fred Jackson, Wayne Memorial Community Health executive director.
Wayne Memorial received a little more than $6.3 million of the allocation for northeastern Pennsylvania health centers that can be used for anything related to COVID-19 and the vaccine.
Jackson said the money will help greatly.
"There is a whole new level of safety enhancements that we look at in health care and to see if there are opportunities there to use some of that money to ensure the safety of both our patients and our staff."
Officials with Wayne Memorial say they want to be careful with how the money is spent.
"It is one-time funding, so we don't want to create ongoing needs that funding won't support in future years," Jackson said.
Jackson says acquiring enough doses of the vaccine for patients was difficult at first. Wayne Memorial was only getting 200 to 300 doses, but it's up to nearly 1,200 a week in the last two weeks. The doses are given within the week.