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Newcastle Herald
Newcastle Herald
National
Damon Cronshaw

Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon angry over Pfizer cuts at Belmont vaccine hub

Jabbed: Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon had his Pfizer shots cancelled on Saturday, so he got an AstraZeneca jab on Sunday.

Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon was among those to have bookings for Pfizer jabs cancelled at the Belmont vaccination hub.

"I'm very angry, not for myself but for the thousands of constituents and other Hunter Region residents, who will be adversely affected by this," Mr Fitzgibbon said.

Mr Fitzgibbon's GP contacted him on Sunday morning to see if he wanted an AstraZeneca shot.

"My GP reached out to me after seeing my social media [about his Pfizer shots being cancelled]. He said 'I have another session today and I'll fit you in'. Obviously, I accepted," he said.

"I thought by taking the shot this morning, I could at least encourage people to talk to their GPs about getting the AstraZeneca vaccine," he said.

Mr Fitzgibbon had been affected by the government's flip-flopping on AstraZeneca. He previously booked an AstraZeneca shot, but was told "three days before that jab that I was no longer eligible for it".

He spent weeks seeking his now cancelled Pfizer jab.

"It was a frustrating process," he said.

Mr Fitzgibbon was "angry about the NSW government's handling of the situation" over the cancelled bookings at the Belmont hub.

"But the root cause of the problem was the Morrison government's decision to limit our vaccine options and rely so heavily on AstraZeneca," Mr Fitzgibbon said.

"We are all paying a price for that now."

He didn't believe the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian's suggestion that those whose vaccines had been cancelled were "only being kicked down the road for a couple of weeks".

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