Baystate Health administers first COVID-19 vaccine; other Western Mass hospitals set to immunize staff
Updated Dec 16, 2020;
SPRINGFIELD Ten months into the COVID-19 pandemic that has swept the globe, a new front against it has begun in Western Massachusetts.
Baystate Health began to administer its allotment of 1,950 doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine early Wednesday morning to staff at greatest risk for exposure to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the respiratory disease known as COVID-19.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts now stands at 286,866 and it is blamed for 11,190 deaths in the Bay State. (Nationally, there have been 16.6 million confirmed cases resulting in more than 302,000 fatalities.)
Quinsigamond Community College will offer free nurse assistant and home health aide training and administrative medical professional programs next year, thanks to grant funding.
The Worcester school announced the new initiatives Tuesday. The nurse assistant and home health aide training program is funded through the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services Nursing and Allied Health Initiative s SNAP Path to Work program. The administrative medical professional program is covered by an undisclosed grant.
The program will allow for free 120-hour nurse assistant or home health aide training programs for students who want to work in a long-term care facility, acute care facility or home health care agency. Upon completion of the program, students will be eligible to take the Massachusetts Certified Nurse Assistant Competency Exam.