BUDDING paramedic Mollie Housego is well aware a university student would not usually be entrusted with doling out life-saving vaccines.<\/p>\n
But for the past six months that is exactly what she has been doing during a once-in-a-100-year pandemic.<\/p>\n
The fourth-year paramedicine student at La Trobe University has been working at a vaccination clinic in Bendigo since July, administering thousands of COVID-19 jabs as part of the national rollout.<\/p>\n
Ms\u00a0Housego, originally from Launceston, answered a call-out from the uni and has not looked back, revelling in the experience.<\/p>\n
“Students in Tassie don’t have those opportunities,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been doing it for a while now and I’m pretty confident in my skills.<\/p>\n
“It’s not just actually vaccinating. It’s being able to work with other health professionals, which I’ve never done before.”<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old described it as a pandemic “silver lining” for her and six fellow paramedicine students currently working at the Bendigo Health hub.<\/p>\n
“As horrible and awful as it’s been the last two years, without COVID I never would have been able to help the community the way that I have now,” she said.<\/p>\n
In addition, she said her and other university students’ presence has freed up more\u00a0nurses to return to hospitals as the number of COVID-19 patient admissions rise amid the Omicron wave.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Victorian government announced it would hire an extra 1000 people to administer COVID-19 vaccines to bolster its booster rollout, including\u00a0first-year health students and retired nurses.<\/p>\n
They will undergo training and carry out a number of supervised vaccinations.<\/p>\n
Ms Housego said she did weeks of vaccination modules before being ticked off to give the jab, and her training is ongoing as rules and regulations are ever-changing.<\/p>\n
She encouraged first-year students to apply for the positions once they are advertised, saying the job has broadened her horizons ahead of graduating later this year.<\/p>\n
“I’m still very much set on being a paramedic but this has given me a little bit more insight that being a paramedic is not the only career I can pursue,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It’s definitely opened up more opportunities, that’s for sure.”<\/p>\n
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