Jeremy puts himself at the sharp end of Covid vaccination

With a syringe in his hand, Kamarin employee Jeremy Tucker has been working at the sharp end of the fight against the Covid pandemic.

The EPOS Engineer has been one of a nationwide army of St John Ambulance volunteers, delivering scores of vaccine shots a day in villages around Cambridgeshire.

And he’s been very busy fulfilling the role for which he volunteered through the NHS web site. “You sit down for a day, and by the end of it you’ve vaccinated more than 100 people,” he said.

He stepped forward to offer his help because, as he sees it, vaccination has to be the way out of the pandemic. “Vaccinating everyone is a huge task, and someone had to do it,” he said. “It’s very rewarding because it’s good to be able to help people.”

He’s been doing his volunteering around Cambridgeshire at weekends, mostly in small centres in villages, using an app to offer his services where they’re needed.

Not the only help offered

But vaccination isn’t the only help he’s been offering. Trained in all roles, he’s also been a carer supporting elderly and vulnerable members of the community by fetching medication and shopping for people who couldn’t do so for themselves.

There have been lulls in the vaccination programme and shifts cancelled as a result of vaccine supplies running low. “Even though that problem has been resolved, I think the vaccination programme has some months yet to run – but we’re getting there,” he said.

Jeremy was a St John Ambulance volunteer in his teens, stepping back from it to concentrate on career and family. “But after all this is over, I may stay with St John; its something I’m interested in,” he said.

But for now, there’s a buzz from helping people, even though patient interactions haven’t been entirely straightforward. “When language difficulties got in the way I’ve had to resort to Google Translate once or twice to be sure the patient and I understood each other,” he said.