Laureen Crews, a U.S. Army Veteran, became the 10,000th Veteran to be vaccinated against COVID-19 at Harry. S. Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital. Photo Courtesy of Harry S. Truman VA
Laureen Crews, a U.S. Army Veteran, became the 10,000th Veteran to be vaccinated against COVID-19 at Harry. S. Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital. Her husband Jonathan Crews, also a U.S. Army Veteran, was the 10,001 Veteran to be vaccinated. Since implementing a dedicated COVID vaccine clinic in December 2020, Truman VA has administered almost 20,000 first and second doses of vaccine to eligible Veterans and staff.
As of Wednesday, more than 25-percent of the Veteran’s that receive care at the Truman VA have been vaccinated. Right now, the clinic is administering more than 2,000 vaccine doses per week.
Truman VA holds a COVID-19 vaccine clinic from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday each week at the medical center, located at 800 Hospital Drive. Enrolled Veterans eligible for VA health care must call (573) 814-6000, extension 54300, to make an appointment to receive a vaccination. Currently, Truman VA is vaccinating enrolled eligible Veterans of any age.
“As we’ve progressed from the initial stages of our vaccine program to now, we have continuously lowered the age requirement for Veterans who may receive a COVID-19 vaccination,” said Patricia Hall, PhD, FACHE, Medical Center Director of Truman VA. “We’ve done this to ensure that our most vulnerable Veterans had an opportunity to be vaccinated as soon as possible. Although we’ve opened up our vaccine clinic to all our enrolled eligible Veterans, we continue to actively reach out to our high-risk patients, and we have strategies in place to ensure that there is consistent availability for those Veterans.”
Truman VA also has held off-site vaccine clinics at strategically selected Community-Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs). To date, all but one of the CBOC vaccine clinics have been by appointment only and were held on pre-scheduled dates.
“Our vaccine clinic team has been doing a great job organizing upcoming events, as well as tracking what we’ve received, what’s been allocated and what’s in our inventory,” Hall said. “It’s logistically challenging. However, the reason for going off-site, which we do as often as possible, is to ensure that our rural Veterans are given the opportunity to be vaccinated as close to home as possible.”
In addition to Truman VA, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced on Feb. 17, 2021, that nationally, VA has vaccinated more than 1 million Veterans against COVID-19.