Blog
In my day job as a Senior Critical Care Paramedic, I bring the hospital to the roadside and look after people when the very worst happens. You might think, particularly during a pandemic, that on my days off I would want a break from patients and PPE.
However, after such a tough year for so many of us, the amazing progress of the UK’s Covid-19 vaccination rollout has been a shot of good news amongst the gloom. That’s why, when I saw the opportunity to become a volunteer vaccinator in my local community of Marlow, I jumped at the chance to help in the fight against Covid.
I found out that a vaccination centre was being set up by community pharmacist Olivier Picard, using office space donated by local business Softcat. After completing my extra training to become a vaccinator, I was ready to go.
The buzz about the place is palpable as you arrive. Everyone working there is volunteering their time. Not only are there volunteer vaccinators, like me, but people running the parking, giving directions, and sorting all the admin to make the whole process as smooth as possible. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the negatives of Covid and the restrictions we have all been experiencing but, if you scratch the surface, you can find positives. The way communities are coming together at these vaccination centres to help those who need it most is truly inspiring.
For some people, the trip to get vaccinated may be the first time they have left their home in months. There is a very special atmosphere. When people arrive for their vaccination, they tell you how much it means to them. For many, it is a sign that they might be able to see their children or grandchildren again soon. It is a light at the end of the tunnel.
In Marlow, we vaccinated an incredible 1,200 people in the first four days, and since then we have been steadily increasing capacity, offering more appointments and availability. As we work through the priority groups, patients are getting younger. There is a real sense of the progress we are making.
I would urge anyone who is offered a vaccine to have it without hesitation. Quite simply, the science is behind this; the research has been done. It’s really important that we take up the vaccine when it is made available to us. Not only for our own health, but for everyone else we are helping by having it: our community, our family, our health sector.
I’m happy to say that all Thames Valley Air Ambulance paramedics have now had their first dose of the vaccine. We know that the risk of Covid transmission to healthcare professionals remains high and the use of PPE is unlikely to go away anytime soon, but this vaccine gives us hope that pressure will ease on the health service and we can all start to breathe a little easier.
After nearly a year of wearing masks in public, our smiles are often concealed behind fabric. But, when a patient looks at me in the vaccination clinic, I don’t have to see their smile to know how happy they are – I can see it in their eyes.
Simon Wetenhall, Senior Critical Care Paramedic
Main image taken 2019.
05/07/2024
News
17/06/2024
News
09/05/2024
Crew
12/04/2024
News
07/03/2024
News
08/01/2024
Crew
Join the community by signing up and keep up to date with news and events.
The Thames Valley Air Ambulance website makes use of the following types of cookies:
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
salt_recent_events | 1 month | This cookie monitors which event pages the user has visited, in order to provide them a list of recently visited event pages. This cookie is only used to improve the user's experience of our website. |
salt_recent_post | 1 month | This cookie monitors which web stories the user has read, in order to provide them a list of recently read stories. This cookie is only used to improve the user's experience of our website. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
_ga | 2 years | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors. |
_gat_gtag_UA_77930033_1 | 1 minute | This cookie is used by Google Tag Manager to store and track website conversions. |
_gid | 1 day | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form. |
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | 30 minutes | This cookie is used by Hotjar to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie. |
_hjFirstSeen | 30 minutes | This is set by Hotjar to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether this was the first time Hotjar saw this user. It is used by Recording filters to identify new user sessions. |
_hjid | 1 year | This cookie is set by Hotjar. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID. |
_hjIncludedInPageviewSample | 30 minutes | This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether a visitor is included in the data sampling defined by our site's pageview limit. |
_hjIncludedInSessionSample | 2 minutes | This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether a visitor is included in the data sampling defined by the website's daily session limit. |
_hjTLDTest | session | This cookie is set by HotJar. When the Hotjar script executes they try to determine the most generic cookie path to use, instead of the page hostname. This is done so that cookies can be shared across subdomains (where applicable). To determine this, HotJar try to store the _hjTLDTest cookie for different URL substring alternatives until it fails. After this check, the cookie is removed. |
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | 5 months 27 days | This cookie is set by Youtube. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website. |
YSC | session | This cookies is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
_fbp | 3 months | This cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website. |
fr | 3 months | The cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. |
IDE | 1 year 24 days | Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile. |
test_cookie | 15 minutes | This cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies. |