Peterborough community pharmacy given go ahead to open Covid vaccine hub

Shabbir Damani, who is the Director of Halls the Chemist in Orton Wistow, has been working since November to prepare the building next to his pharmacy to act as a vaccination hub for the city.

The building in Napier Place was once the Beijing Rendezvous chinese restaurant but has now been converted by Shabbir to allow it to function as a high volume vaccination centre.

Mr Damani was first told earlier this month by NHS England that he had been declined permission to give out Covid vaccinations but since then, he and his team have been working hard to prove that they can provide the facilities and the resources to deliver a high volume of vaccines each day.

The hub was given the go ahead late on Monday evening (January 25) and the final preparations are being made with the vaccinations set to start early next week.

The vaccinations will be carried out by the trained pharmacy team at Halls that have been delivering winter flu vaccines for many years and have a wealth of experience.

They will be supported in this effort by a team of volunteers who will be helping with car parking and marshalling patients once inside the building.

The team is always looking for new volunteers and anyone interested in helping out has been urged to visit Halls the Chemist’s Facebook page or to call or message 07766 910910.

Providing this service for the city is something that is of personal importance for Mr Damani, who has been working as a pharmacist in the city for the last 30 years.

He is from a family of Ugandan refugees who found refuge when both the UK and the city of Peterborough opened its doors to them and he now wants to repay the city for welcoming him and his family.

He said: “Everyone needs to do whatever they can in our time of great need and as a pharmacist I help people and have been doing it for 30 years.

“I see this as part of my responsibility to vaccinate as many people as we can to save lives.

“We need to come together as a city in a collaborative effort to release the strain on the NHS, bring down the number of cases and bring down the number of deaths. We have already lost too many, we had already lost too many when the total hit one.

“I am grateful for everyone’s help in getting us here, my team, the volunteers and I must also give full credit to the NHS. I also want to work with as many people as possible in the city. Anyone who wants to help out, we would love to hear from you.

“For me personally, the city opened its doors my family and I am so grateful for that and I want to give something back by standing up and doing my best for my community.

“I would also like to thank all the key workers in the city, for delivering food, looking after us and helping educate our children, all of that has allowed me the time to get this project off of the ground.”