A decision to force elderly Gozo residents to travel to Malta twice for their COVID-19 vaccine and booster shot has been reversed. 

Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci announced on Friday that Gozitans classified as being vulnerable will in the coming days receive another letter with an appointment in Gozo. 

The issue was flagged by PN MP Chris Said on Thursday after several vulnerable Gozitans received appointment letters to get their vaccine shots in Malta. 

Said had  said that medical frontliners in Gozo are also being asked to get their vaccines in Malta.

Said accused the authorities of lacking common sense by taking such an approach. 

The MP urged the government and health authorities to find a solution that allows all Gozitans to receive the COVID vaccine in Gozo. 

Times of Malta also obtained an appointment letter for a Victoria resident showing two appointments for the COVID-19 vaccine at Mater Dei hospital in February and March. 

Qala resident Jenny Scott separately wrote in to Times of Malta about how her clinically vulnerable 75-year-old husband received a vaccine appointment in Malta for the following day. 

“Lucky the post was quick in arriving, less lucky that we live in Gozo. He is being asked to put himself at considerable risk in travelling first on the ferry and then by public transport or taxi to an institution where he will come into contact with even more vulnerable people and potential infection.

“How does this make any kind of sense when we have a perfectly adequate hospital here in Gozo where surely the vaccinations could be administered”, Scott wrote. 

Gozo has its own vaccination programme, with the first vaccine being administered at Gozo General Hospital last December. Rabta health centre is also being used.