Cost of Cavan’s Covid-19 vaccination centre revealed
The total cost of operating Cavan’s COVID-19 vaccine centre reached €4.3 million.
Figures released to The Anglo-Celt under the Freedom of Information Act show over half, or €2.5 million, was made up of staff pay.
Over €1.6 million of that was paid throughout 2021, and the remaining €872,600 between January and June 2022.
The overall total does not include the cost of purchasing the COVID-19 vaccines administered at the site.
The Hotel Kilmore on the outskirts of Cavan Town was rented by the HSE to operate the centre. Over a period of 497 days, it rented the hotel’s Country Club, located to the rear of the prominent Dublin Road premises. Rental of the facility made up the second highest overall cost, totalling €894,600 over the period from February 11, 2021 to June 22, 2022. Rental of infrastructure and some equipment for the site totalled €309,611, paid to infrastructure and events company Actavo.
A total of €322,549 was paid for security staff contracted to work at the centre, working out at an average cost of €648.99 a day.
Cleaning and washing of the site, meanwhile, came to €204,790 over the 16-month period.
The figures released show catering over the same period totalled €20,220, while transport of patients came to €6,337.
Travel and subsistence payments for staff working in the centre came to a total of €11,183, broken down into €4,213 in 2021 and €6,970 in 2022.
Medical and surgical appliance and equipment costs amounted to €3,140, while furniture, crockery and hardware expenditure came to €589.
Office expenses totalled €11,756 over the 16-month period.
The remaining €13,193 was made up of bedding and clothing costs, training, bank interest and miscellaneous expenditure.
The total paid by the Government for each vaccine dose has not been released. However, it’s understood the EU vaccine deal struck last year put a cost of between €12 and €15.50 on each dose.
In total, 116 staff worked in the Cavan vaccine centre, administering 84,990 Covid-19 vaccine doses.
That puts the total cost of vaccines administered in the Cavan centre at between €1,019,880 and €1,317,345.
The Hotel Kilmore centre was open for vaccine from April 2021 to the end of June this year. The contract with the hotel was originally set to expire at the end of October last year but was extended a number of times at the request of the HSE.
Pop-up centres
The HSE has since moved to a system of pop-up vaccination clinics held regularly across Co Cavan. It said at the time it felt the decision was the right one for the continued rollout of the vaccine programme:
"We are reducing the number of our large vaccination sites because at this point we believe that we can provide the necessary level of vaccination required for the remainder of 2022 and beyond with a smaller number of sites, supported by local GPs and Pharmacies."
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