It's been almost a year since Bendigo Health and the healthcare workers of the region began their tireless journey to vaccinate the population against COVID-19.
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And while there have been 239,329 doses administered in the Loddon Mallee region to date, staff could never have imagined how far their efforts would need to go.
Regional vaccination program manager Dan Sheard said since the beginning, it had been one wild ride.
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"Originally we had a team of three to try and nut out how we were going to approach this roll out," he said.
"We had received a document from the Department of Health that said 'these are the rules, these are the goal posts, this is all the information on how to look after the vaccine you're getting and oh by the way you're looking after the whole Loddon Mallee'.
"They gave us the ground rules to set up the initial three other sub hubs, but we quickly told them that probably wouldn't be enough for the area so we got the go ahead for sites in Mildura, Swan Hill, Echuca, Castlemaine and Kyneton."
But before the clinic the people of Bendigo now know quite well, Mr Sheard said the vaccines were first administered in the older buildings of the hospital.
"So 12 months ago it was us in the old emergency department and that was initially where we did the testing and we set up the vaccination hub in the old radiology building," he said.
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"In the early days we were vaccinating 200 a day out of that site and I think we maxed out at about 450 people in one day, which at the time we thought was huge and we never thought we would see more than that."
After taking their clinic on the road to help smaller communities with their vaccinating, Mr Sheard said the team was dealt their next challenge.
"Somewhere in March, the state government came out and said we needed to have all the public nursing homes vaccinated before Easter," he said.
"So we worked with the hubs in Swan Hill and Echuca to get to that target because it was a completely unreasonable number to get done in a very short space of time."
And while number remained steady for a while, they hadn't seen anything until the region saw COVID-19 case numbers explode.
"Just as we secured this site on about May 24, there was the outbreak in Bendigo and that's when numbers went crazy," Mr Sheard said.
"It's certainly been a exercise in resilience, but also it was eye opening for me to realise we needed to master the art of moving people and to make the place not look like chaos."
He said while vaccine shortages had been an issue, there were more that Bendigo Health would face.
"Staffing definitely has been a challenge, finding people in Bendigo to actually deliver the vaccine," Mr Sheard said.
"At our peak we were running about 45 to 50 staff a day and we're gradually bringing that back down now.
"But that's not only been here in Mollison Street, that's on the road as well, because despite the sub hubs we do still have quite a reach on road.
"Although that was elevated a lot by people's potential and it's allowed us to go into roles that we never would have considered previously and that's been the case for a lot of people."
Bendigo Health chair Bob Cameron said the vaccination hub team had gone above and beyond to keep the community safe.
"Health services across the region have combined to administer close to a quarter of a million doses of COVID-19 vaccine," he said.
"It has been an incredible collective effort and I want to thank all staff involved.
"The vaccination team has brought the vaccine to the community, vaccinating at meatworks, community halls, police stations and places of worship to name a few.
"Making the vaccine accessible to everyone has helped protect our community."
"Of course we wouldn't have been able to achieve such strong vaccination numbers - more than 95 per cent double dose vaccination rate in Bendigo and surrounds - without our community being on board."
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