Mark Brown spoke to people during a pop-up vaccination session in Deptford, London
TRANSCRIPT:
MB: This is Mark Brown for Lewisham Vaccination Stories in a wonderfully warm and not quite sunny Deptford, at the 2000 Community Action Centre, and I’m here with…?
MC: Moira Kerrane.
MB: Moira, are you the big boss person of this centre?
MC: Well, I’m not a big boss but I’m one of the trustees that is more hands on, and that is why I organised this today with the Grove Medical Centre.
MB: We are doing a pop-up vaccination session here. I just wanted to ask you about the role of the centre during the pandemic, and also during vaccinations, like, what is the story?
MC: Okay, so as a local community centre we made a decision — our board made a decision — not to close in line with all the other community centres, because we live in a high-density, deprived area and we knew how important it was to keep the centre open.
What we did was we operated on an emergency COVID access, where the local people could still access IT, telephones, signposted advice, housing benefit, all of the sorts of day-to-day stuff. We kept open for the whole of the pandemic, and we are still — so we haven’t had a furlough or a rest. It has been intensive.
MB: Yes, me neither. I’ve worked all the way through this pandemic too. We are doing vaccinations today. It is a pop-up where the vaccinators will come out to the centre, been wonderfully hosted by Moira and her colleagues.
Why is the pop-up important and why is it important to do here?
MC: The reason why we felt that was important to do here is because it is the highest-density housing — social housing estate, actually, in the north of Lewisham, and we are the central community centre. In order to reach the people living around the centre, we felt it much better to do it locally than to send them on buses to central Lewisham.
We decided, “Let’s try and work with the GP service. Let’s see if the CCG and the NHS can all pull together to do something local.”
MB: I was talking to someone else today, and one of the really big themes was trust and the reason why people might not be choosing to have the vaccine. It feels like a community centre is a place of trust.
MC: Yes, that is a really big element. When people see people from the community getting the vaccine it encourages them to do it as well. But also here it has been difficult, because at the beginning of the pandemic most of the people we know in our community had COVID.
It has been a question of trying to persuade them, “Yes, you’ve had it but you still need the vaccine,” and that is what has been the dilemma at the moment, is trying to get them over that hurdle of knowledge. We are obviously telling them about the variants and how helpful the vaccine is going to be. Even though they’ve had it, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee them protection.
MB: It feels super, super important that you are here.
MC: Well, yes, we want everybody that we know to be safe, and having a community centre surrounded by high-rises and tower blocks, people can actually physically see the day to day. They can look out their window and see that there is something happening in here today.
For me, anything local that reaches local people quickly is brilliant. We are not having them getting on buses and trains going to London Bridge, going to Lewisham. They are able to do it on their doorstep, which is fantastic.
MB: Brilliant. Thank you for that, Moira.