DETROIT – Seniors and first responders living in Highland Park do not have access to the Detroit Health Department’s vaccine program.
That is because the less than 3-square-mile city is its own jurisdiction.
UPDATE Tuesday morning: Due to the hazardous weather conditions, the vaccination clinic will be rescheduled to next Tuesday, Feb. 23 -- time will be the same: 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
On Monday, the vaccines are coming to them with the help of Mitch Albom.
When Albom’s charity SAY Detroit opened a clinic in 2006 he didn’t think they would end up being on the frontlines of a pandemic.
Related: 6 ways Michigan residents can sign up for COVID-19 vaccine
They’ve had to overcome all the federal hurdles to get here. The biggest of course is getting the vaccine, but starting Tuesday they will be able to get needles into arms.
Through an initiative of the Wayne County Health Department, doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine have become available for people in Highland Park and Hamtramck at the SAY Detroit family health clinic.
“When we opened this, SAY Detroit medical clinic and family health center back in 2006 the whole idea was to provide medical care to communities that weren’t getting easy access to it, and to provide it for free and welcome, everybody. This is like the culmination of that to be able to offer the COVID vaccine in Highland Park in a community that is challenged for anybody who fits the criteria,” said Albom.
That would be only people who live in Highland Park or Hamtramck.
You must also be 65 and older or a first responder.
Anyone who wants it can call 313-590-0470 for an appointment or just walk inside the SAY Detroit clinic on Glendale Avenue.
For Albom, the SAY Detroit staff and family health clinic, it was simply a matter of when they could get doses of the vaccine to help fight the pandemic.
He added, “I think when you have a medical clinic for charity, and that takes people without insurance and children and homeless people and all that, suddenly, when a pandemic like this hits, you’re not just one of a bunch of organizations that do similar type of work. It’s a health issue, you’re a health clinic, you have to jump forward. These are the times you have to rise to the occasion. That is although otherwise, why did you create the place?”