A local pharmacy in Portage la Prairie is one of the first known in the region to be accepted to dole out COVID-19 vaccines when they become available.

Pharmasave recently finished jumping through the hoops to make this happen. Pharmacist owner Caitlin Giercke says they got the notification a few weeks ago to sign up.

"We went through with that process, and it's kind of a long process. There's a lot of forms to fill out and learning to do online," says Giercke. "We've got the process started, and we will be letting people know when we're able to finally offer that vaccine."

The deal is pretty much set in stone, but the pharmacy has to do its part by taking online government education about administering the vaccine and not wasting the doses.

Caitlin Giercke

There's no concrete date on when Pharmasave will be able to administer the shot. Distribution is contingent on a couple of factors, one being vaccine availability and the other surrounding storage practices.

"In a community pharmacy, we don't have the sub-zero capabilities to store the vaccines that are currently approved. So, those (vaccines) are right now only approved for use in supercenters," says Giercke. "There are other (vaccines) that are still in the approval phase with Health Canada, so hopefully once those come through, it'll be more readily available to people in a community setting."

This means the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines will not be administered at Pharmasave. The pharmacy plans to maintain an open dialogue with its customers to alert them when the vaccine becomes available.

"We all have to be patient and know that we will have the opportunity to get it when we are allowed to get it, and we want to make sure that our most vulnerable people get it first," says Giercke. "So we'll just be doing our best to communicate that to our clients that we have here."

Giercke explains why it was important for her pharmacy to jump onboard this opportunity.

"We just want to be able to offer all the services that we can here at Pharmasave, and we have the time to do it," says Giercke. "Both myself and Glen (Pauch, pharmacist/front store manager) have the ability, with being approved to administer vaccinations."