Belleville Council has given the green light for Hastings Prince Edward Public Health to use the Quinte Sports and Wellness Centre as a site for a COVID-19 vaccination clinic.
Councillors approved the motion on Monday afternoon, with the city planning to make part of the wellness centre available to the health unit between March and September.
Mayor Mitch Panciuk says there are a lot of reasons why the health unit is interested in using the QSWC.
“It can be easily separated from the rest of the Quinte Sports and Wellness Centre, it has access to transit and plenty of parking. Right now our plan is to make it available until after the long weekend in September and it can be available at any time, without interrupting what we don’t expect to be a heavy programming schedule.”
Mayor Panciuk says it’s possible that the building could be made available earlier than March, if more vaccines become available and the clinic needs to start up earlier than planned.
Meanwhile, Councillor Chris Malette had asked about the potential to use public transit to shuttle people to the clinic if they need a ride, with CAO Rod Bovay pointing out that specific details need to be sorted out.
“At this point there has been no discussion on the technical details, there’s simply a request. The health unit is looking at multiple locations and this is one site they were particularly interested in, but that’s been the extent of the discussion at this point.”
More details on the clinic will be made available through the health unit as more vaccines arrive and we move into the next phase of Ontario’s vaccine roll out.
