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D.W. McMillan Memorial Hospital’s vaccine clinic has been abuzz over the last few weeks as more and more area citizens scramble to get the COVID vaccine.

Robin Griffin said the clinc has been very busy as residents sign-up and get appointments for the vaccine.

“We have been very busy and it takes some work to handle the patients as quickly and efficiently as possible,” Griffin said. “We have been blessed with some wonderful volunteers that are helping. Sandy (DeFrancisco) has been here since day one and Cindy (Ward) has been volunteering as well. It’s nice to have that kind of support from wonderful people.”

Debbie Gist, compliance officer and vaccine coordinator for D.W. McMillan Memorial Hospital, said the workload for the clinic has been hectic and will continue to be for some time to come.

“It takes a tremendous amount of planning to make the clinic run smoothly,” Gist said. “We have to make sure to see patients using guidelines given to us by the Alabama Department of Public Health. We make sure to follow dates and priorty when it comes to seeing patients for the vaccine.”

Griffin said walk-ins are not accepted at this time with appointments necessary for getting the vaccine.

“Appointments for the first and second dose of the vaccine are required,” Griffin said. “We will call patients with those appointment dates and times. We just need them to answer the phone. The call may show up as a spam risk, but we just need people to answer those calls so that we can get those apopintments set.”

Griffin reminded those looking to make appointments and get a call-back on a date and time will never be asked for payment of any kind. The purpose of those call-backs are for scheduling only, she said.