Arena 2 in Quesnel could be the site for a mass COVID-19 vaccination site.
The North Cariboo Joint Advisory Committee gave approval to staff to begin negotiations with Northern Health to use the leisure patch at Arena 2 as a vaccination site.
Director of Community Services Jeff Norburn said he’d been in discussions with the health authority for a few weeks already.
“(Northern Health) figure that size will be good enough, it won’t really have impact on user groups,” he said during the March 9 meeting of the committee.
Norburn said the health authority may ask for a reduced user fee to use the space, but mass-vaccination sites are not the priority right now for local health officials.
“They’re focused right now on getting the phase one sites up and running,” Norburn said. “Negotiating for space in facilities for phase two, which would be the large scale mass-vaccination clinics, they’re not at that point yet, but they will be in the next few days.”
Norburn said he would work with Northern Health to ensure the committee would recover any costs related to running the clinic, noting a lack of use has put financial strain on recreation services in the district.
“We all want to see these vaccination clinics up and running, and from a staff perspective we want to make sure we’re recovering any incremental costs,” he said. “For example, if the clinic were running into the evening, and we had to keep staff on later than they would normally work, at the very least we want to recover some of those costs.”
The committee unanimously gave approval to negotiate with Northern Health.
READ MORE: Dunrovin residents first to receive vaccine in Quesnel
READ MORE: B.C. plans for COVID-19 ‘mass vaccination’ by March
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