VA Portland Health Care System to surpass 50,000 COVID-19 vaccinations

 PORTLAND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- The VA Portland Health Care System is scheduled to surpass administering more than 50,000 COVID-19 vaccinations across its health care system on Thursday.

The healthcare system runs two mass-vaccination clinics at the Portland VA Medical Center and at the Vancouver VA campus with the ability to give more than 1,500 vaccinations per day when the vaccine is available.  VA Portland staff also run multiple ‘pop-up’ vaccination events across its 26-county, two-state area of operations to reach rural-area Veterans and provides vaccines at several of its smaller clinics.

“I am incredibly proud of the hundreds of VA Portland staff who have volunteered extra hours, worked weekends, and traveled across the state to get COVID vaccines in the arms of veterans,” said Darwin Goodspeed, director of the VA Portland Health Care System. “Our rural veterans have been a major focus as well, and we could not have had all the events we did without our partners in the Oregon National Guard and the VFW in Redmond. Thank you for your support!”

Getting to Portland for not one but, typically, a two-shot vaccination series is not easy for many people. To reduce veteran travel and to reach our homeless Veteran population, VA Portland has hosted and planned many single and multi-day vaccination events including at The Dalles, Warrenton (Camp Rilea), Newport, Redmond, and in our Community Resource and Referral Center. These events have resulted in getting about 2,500 vaccine doses to our veterans, with about 1,500 still planned.

VA Portland is currently offering vaccinations to enrolled veterans of all ages, but some of the smaller clinics with limited capacity are still focusing on older veterans. Veterans are contacted and scheduled by phone, are emailed direct to schedule themselves and, for specific vaccination events, may also call to get scheduled for their vaccinations. All the details are available at www.portland.va.gov. If not enrolled for VA care, Veterans are encouraged to check eligibility and enroll by calling the VA Health Eligibility Center at 1-877-222-VETS (8387). More eligibility information is here.

Updated information on vaccination details is available at www.portland.va.gov as well as the national “COVID-19 vaccines at VA” website. Anyone can sign up on that main VA Portland web page to receive email updates where it says “CONNECT WITH VA PORTLAND HEALTH CARE SYSTEM.”  Information is also shared on the VA Portland Facebook page.

Veterans are asked to please not call the health care system for COVID vaccination scheduling or for updates. They are encouraged to communicate their questions or concerns about their care through their care teams, preferably through secure messaging via MyHealtheVet.

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VA Portland Health Care System  serves more than 95,000 Veterans in Oregon and Southwest Washington. VA Portland consists of the main tertiary care medical center located in Portland, Ore., the Vancouver Division located in Vancouver, Wash., a Community Resource and Referral Center (CRRC) in Portland, as well as nine community outpatient clinics across Oregon that support our Veterans in Bend, Fairview, Hillsboro, Warrenton, Newport, Salem, The Dalles, West Linn, and Lincoln City.