Desert Oasis Healthcare clinics share plans to help vaccinate public

Desert Oasis Healthcare clinics have started vaccinating staff members and have plans to help vaccinate the public once they receive more doses. 

“It’s all based upon vaccine and our availability,” said Jessica Voigt, Director of Nursing, Desert Oasis Healthcare. 

Voigt explains that so far, their doses have been limited to healthcare workers only — about 130 per day. But she says as soon as they receive additional shipments and the county allows more tiers to be vaccinated, they plan to offer their multiple valley locations and resources to help vaccinate the public in large numbers. 

“At Desert Oasis we are rearing and ready to go. We’re anticipated the day we can flip the switch and start vaccinating the public and start to end this pandemic,” said Voigt. 

She says they even have plans to work closely with local school districts — both Desert Sands and Palm Springs Unified: “They have both offered up sites for large mass vaccination that Desert Oasis would be willing to help out with. Ideally seeing an upwards of 1,000 patients a day.” 

For now, everything just on hold until more vaccines become available countywide. In the meantime, people are encouraged to visit Desert Oasis’ website HERE, to be added to a vaccine waiting list. 

“Put your name in and your information. That shows us you’re interested. And that’s really important for us to be able to pull from that list when we do have vaccine,” said Lindsey Valenzuela, Associate Vice President of Population Health Integration, Desert Oasis Healthcare. 

For those with severe COVID-19 symptoms, they also have a testing and treatment tent currently set up at their Palm Springs location. 

“This tent right here is actually now trying to test and treat patients so we can prevent hospitalizations,” explained Brian Hodgkins, Executive Vice President, Clinical Operations, Desert Oasis Healthcare. 

Hodgkins says they offer PCR and rapid testing, as well as antibody therapies on site. He says in the future, pop-up tents like this could also be used at mass vaccinations sites. 

“We plan on doing our part for the community to immunize everyone we can,” added Hodgkins.