In a letter to Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley, Ms Sheed requested the state government provide GV Health with the resources to service a seven-days-a-week vaccination service, and said current opening hours were "entirely insufficient".
Currently, GV Health is offering vaccinations at Shepparton's McIntosh Centre from 9 am to 4 pm, Monday to Friday.
But other regional centres like Bendigo and Geelong remain open seven days a week.
“GV Health urgently needs more supply and resources for our eligible community members to receive their vaccinations . . . vaccinations should be offered throughout weekends,” Ms Sheed said.
“Some Shepparton workers simply cannot take almost two hours out of their workingday to get vaccinated.
“We need to make the vaccinations easily accessible to everyone in our community ifwe are to offer them the protection they deserve against COVID-19.”
While some GPs provide COVID-19 vaccination services, Ms Sheed said their capacity to do so was "limited" as they dealt with their usual patient load.
“If the government wants to drive up vaccination rates, it needs to make vaccinations more accessible,” she said.
The call comes as a Shepparton GP said new Federal Government guidelines which allowed people under 40 to have the AstraZeneca vaccine if they received approval from their GP were "confusing" the general public.
Princess Park Clinic GP Jimmy Tseng said he had seen "no increased interest" from the under-40s age group in having the vaccine since Prime Minister Scott Morrison made the announcement on Monday evening.
While Pfizer remains the recommended vaccine for people under 60, Mr Morrison said the AstraZeneca vaccine would become available to people aged under 40 if their GP had made them aware of the associated health risks.
“There is significant hesitancy now; many people I talk to are just waiting for the Pfizer vaccine to be available,” Dr Tseng said.
“Worse still, I’ve had an increasing number of over 60s being worried about the AstraZeneca vaccine.”
Dr Tseng said he did "not welcome" the new guidelines, which where making it harder to explain the vaccination rollout to patients.
“However, I do support the fact that the AstraZeneca vaccine is made more available,” he said.
“It is reasonable for some people to accept the risk.”
Dr Tseng said AstraZeneca was comparable to other vaccines, such as that for yellow fever which had a severe side effect rate of 1 in 400,000 despite being mandatory if travelling to certain areas of the world.
“Regardless of whichever vaccine you choose or get, just make sure you get the second vaccine,” he said.
“As demonstrated in Sydney, all 24 of the 30 people at the birthday party who caught it were unvaccinated.”
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) agreed.
It called on the Federal Government to clarify details on the changes to AstraZeneca vaccine eligibility and provide greater support to Australian GPs.
“The nation’s general practices had no warning of the announcements . . . and are now scrambling to figure out what this means for our patients,” RACGP president Karen Price said.
“It makes the job of GPs that much harder when we are trying to get as many of our patients vaccinated as quickly as we can.”
Goulburn Valley Health said at this stage, as a state-run centre, the changed guidelines announced by the Federal Government only applied to GP practices, not the McIntosh Centre vaccination hub.
● To book a vaccination with GV Health or reschedule an appointment, call 1800 675 398.
