Miami Dade College employees 65-plus can get COVID vaccines. Other plans in the works
Miami Dade College, like other schools, is trying to partner with South Florida hospitals to secure COVID-19 vaccinations for its workforce, and eventually, its students.
MDC President Madeline Pumariega finalized a deal Friday that would give employees 65 and older the chance to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccines would be given by appointment through Jackson Health System, Miami-Dade County’s public hospital network. Vaccinations could begin this week.
The college is also in talks with Miami-Dade County, and Baptist Health of South Florida and its Miami Cancer Institute.
What’s one of the possibilities being discussed?
Qualified MDC students and faculty in its medical assistant, physician assistant and nursing programs could help administer the COVID-19 vaccine to seniors, and eventually the rest of the community. And MDC locations could serve as vaccination sites. In exchange, the college wants vaccines for its employees and students.
“This will help relieve the burden for these entities to remove health professionals from the front lines of medical treatment to handle the administration of vaccines,” MDC spokesman Juan Mendieta told the Miami Herald in an email.
He said MDC’s campuses have previously been used during and after emergencies to help provide aid, including for food and technology distribution during the pandemic. Now, the college is hoping to be “part of the solution.”
If the partnerships are finalized, Mendieta said it would give students important experience and help address staffing shortages the county and hospitals will likely face as they try to get the community vaccinated quickly.
South Florida has seen busy phone lines, crashed websites and quickly disappearing vaccination appointments. Some seniors with appointments have been stuck in long lines for hours at drive-thru vaccination sites in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
MDC, FIU work to get COVID-19 vaccines
In April, when hospitals were in need of more ventilators to care for severely ill COVID-19 patients, Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran urged all college presidents to see what they could loan to hospitals. MDC’s medical campus was one of the schools that responded. It loaned 17 ventilators — which it uses for hands-on teaching — to its next-door neighbor, Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Another school loaning ventilators to hospitals was Florida International University, which has helped staff the COVID-19 testing site located on the county’s fairgrounds in Tamiami Park, next to the university’s main campus off Southwest Eighth Street.
On Friday night, FIU announced that Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and the Florida Department of Health would be giving the school a limited amount of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. FIU said it would use the doses to vaccinate healthcare faculty and staff that have direct contact with patients, as early as this week.
FIU, which had applied to be a vaccination site, also announced last week it had a limited amount of vaccination appointments for its faculty and staff 65 and older through Jackson and Baptist Health.
Regardless which type of partnership MDC, FIU or any other school secures, the colleges and universities would still have to follow Florida’s vaccination orders on who can get the vaccine. Currently, only healthcare workers, long-term care facilities and people 65 and older can get the vaccine in Florida.
MDC said it expects to continue discussions this week.
This story was originally published January 11, 2021 at 12:38 PM.
