How Manchester is reaching the homeless with Covid vaccinations
A day with a mobile surgery dedicated to helping one of the most vulnerable and hard to reach groups
Graham was hanging around McDonald's on Manchester's Oxford Road last week when he was asked by an outreach worker if he wanted the Covid-19 vaccine. He was keen, picked up his rucksack and sleeping bag and strolled round the corner to a mobile health clinic parked in the Gay Village outside Barnabus, a drop-in centre for homeless people.
For Graham, who has been housed during the pandemic in a one-bed flat, the vaccine represents a step back to normality. I'm so bored," he said afterwards. I'm so depressed. I've just sat in since March last year. It's been like living in a jail cell." At 53 he has already outlived the average life expectancy for a homeless man by six years.
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