LINCOLN – While most older individuals across Rhode Island are being prioritized in receiving the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccination at various locations, one place in the state’s Blackstone Valley has set up a vaccination clinic to help serve another critically vulnerable population combat the deadly virus.
The R.I. Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals, the R.I. Department of Health, the Community Provider Network of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Disaster Medical Assistance Team Medical Reserve Corps collaborated to establish a clinic at Kirkbrae Country Club to provide vaccines to intellectually and developmentally disabled individuals who live in congregate care settings. Kirkbrae is the only such makeshift clinic of its kind in the state that is vaccinating those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Community Provider Network Executive Director Tina Spears, who oversees the Warwick-based nonprofit that serves those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, told Providence Business News Thursday that many individuals with such disabilities live in congregate care settings. People who live in these settings, she said, are part of the state’s Phase 1 vaccine rollout along with health care and frontline workers.
“It was really about how do we serve this population and make sure that they get vaccinated,” Spears said, also noting it took about two days to set up the clinic – which launched earlier this week – with the help of RIDOH, RIBHDDH and RIDMA.
Since the clinic opened its doors, just under 2,000 vaccinations were done through three sessions at Kirkbrae, Spears said, and Thursday’s fourth clinic was slated to administer 750 doses for the day.
“It’s been an amazing collaboration,” said Kevin Savage, RIBHDDH’s director of disability services. “Tina and her organization have been the backbone in pushing this forward and helping to recognize the needs of the people with disabilities, identifying them as vulnerable population and making sure that their vaccines have gotten accomplished.”
Kirkbrae’s banquet rooms, which normally house wedding receptions, company meetings and forums, and other gatherings – all restricted because of the pandemic – were reconfigured so that several hundred people throughout the day receive their much-needed vaccinations. After receiving their shots in one room from volunteer health care workers, people are then moved into another room so that they can receive their next vaccination appointment, vaccination cards and a place to sit for approximately 15 minutes making sure no adverse side effects come to fruition.
RIDMA volunteer Jill D’Abrosca said Kirkbrae, after speaking with General Manager Michael Bradshaw, recognized there was a need for the community and the course “graciously” opened the doors to help.
“They said that it’s the right thing to do. There’s not a big venue to get people through and [Bradshaw] said the right thing to do is to open up [the] facility because [Kirkbrae] is not having large-scale events,” D’Abrosca said. “He’s basically given us carte blanche.”
Spears said she anticipates vaccinations will be administered at Kirkbrae through March.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may email him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
