Busy? Get Your Drive-Thru Flu Shot

By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 29, 2008 3:39 PM CDT
Busy? Get Your Drive-Thru Flu Shot
A rally for vaccination choice in New Jersey. As flu season approaches, many New Jersey parents are furious over a first-in-the-nation requirement that small children must get a flu shot.   (AP Photo)

A Massachusetts hospital has a novel way to administer influenza vaccinations: the drive-through. Caritas Norwood, south of Boston, has nurses on hand to administer the shot in a designated areas of the hospital’s driveway, the Boston Globe reports. Some 250 people, at $20 a pop, have received the vaccine already this year. “It makes sense, and you don't tie up the general practitioners,” one car-bound patient said.

The car-side treatment appeals to “folks who have trouble getting out of the car,” a hospital official said, “and also to mothers and fathers with kids in car seats.” It takes about a minute. Caritas’ program is in line with many across the nation administering what's expected to be a record number of shots in schools and at polling places. Giving shots exclusively in hospitals and doctors' offices is “a very big burden on the health care system,” a CDC official said. (More flu stories.)

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