Green Bay, Wis. – Today Prevea Health began administering second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to its health care workers, along with those at its HSHS hospital partners in Wisconsin. The second dose, which is required for maximum effectiveness (94%) of the vaccine, is given 21 days after the first dose.
“From the moment these vaccines first became available to us by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services just 21 days ago, our teams have been working swiftly, yet carefully to effectively immunize every health care worker within the Prevea Health and HSHS Wisconsin systems that wishes to be vaccinated,” said Dr. Ashok Rai, President and CEO at Prevea Health. “We are immensely proud of the work our teams have done so far to get our health care workers and community EMS teams vaccinated. We continue to eagerly await the opportunity to offer these life-saving vaccines to our community members and put an end to this pandemic.”
Dr. Richard Amankwah, a Prevea Health hospitalist at HSHS St. Vincent Hospital and HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital Medical Center in Green Bay, was among the first to receive a first dose of vaccine on Dec. 16, 2020, and among the first today (Jan. 6, 2021) to receive his second.
“This second dose completes my immunization and provides me great relief as a frontline health care provider,” said Dr. Amankwah. “I encourage my patients and everyone in our communities to become vaccinated, and to be sure to get both doses for maximum protection, the moment they become available.”
Additional health care workers at HSHS hospitals in Wisconsin (HSHS St. Vincent Hospital and HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital Medical Center in Green Bay; HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital in Sheboygan; HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital in Oconto Falls; HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire; and HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls) and Prevea Health locations throughout Wisconsin will receive the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in the coming days and weeks.
As the wait for vaccines to become more widely available continues, HSHS Wisconsin and Prevea Health encourage everyone to do their part to decrease the number of COVID cases in Wisconsin by continuing with diligent hand washing, social distancing, masking and staying home if you are not feeling well.
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About HSHS Wisconsin
HSHS Wisconsin, a division of Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS), is comprised of six hospitals serving multiple communities throughout Eastern and Western Wisconsin:
HSHS St. Vincent Hospital and
HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital Medical Center in Green Bay;
HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital in Sheboygan;
HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital in Oconto Falls;
HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire and
HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls. As affiliates of HSHS, and as part of Christ’s healing ministry, these hospitals draw on the history of St. Francis of Assisi to serve the health care needs of all people.
About Hospital Sisters Health System
Hospital Sisters Health System’s (HSHS) mission is to reveal and embody Christ’s healing love for all people through our high-quality Franciscan health care ministry. HSHS provides state-of-the-art health care to our patients and is dedicated to serving all people, especially the most vulnerable, at each of our physician practices and 15 local hospitals in two states – Illinois (Breese, Decatur, Effingham, Greenville, Highland, Litchfield, O’Fallon, Shelbyville and Springfield) and Wisconsin (Chippewa Falls, Eau Claire, Oconto Falls, Sheboygan and two in Green Bay). HSHS is sponsored by Hospital Sisters Ministries, and
Hospital Sisters of St. Francis is the founding institute. For more information about HSHS, visit
www.hshs.org. For more information about Hospital Sisters of St. Francis, visit
www.hospitalsisters.org.
About Prevea Health
Founded in Green Bay, Wis. in 1996, Prevea Health is a health care organization that provides high-quality, primary and specialty health care in 80+ locations across Northern, Eastern and Western Wisconsin in clinic and hospital settings. It is partnered with six Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) hospitals across Wisconsin to provide patients a system of highly-coordinated care, close to home: HSHS St. Vincent Hospital and HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital Medical Center in Green Bay; HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital in Sheboygan; HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital in Oconto Falls; HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire; and HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls. For more information, visit
www.prevea.com.