Bulloch County Health Department offers free immunizations as part of back-to-school checklist

BULLOCH COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) - Bulloch County students will be starting the school year this Friday and parents are filling out the back-to-school checklist.

One of those things to do is back-to-school checkups.

The Bulloch County Health Department is hosting free immunizations required for school attendance and screenings.

Those screenings include everything from hearing, vision and dental screenings.

Nurses at the department said they do this every year to help relieve parents of back to school stresses.

They said it’s a one stop shop with no appointments needed.

Nurse Shai Barnes said that they expect a high number of attendance like they have the past couple of years post-COVID.

She said this year, they have seen the most people they ever have just on the second day.

“We have a lobby full. We are kind of running out of seats for people so people standing in the lobby and it kind of gets easy to loose count when you are seeing so many people back to back come in for these shots. We feel really lucky to be able to have such big impact on this community,” said Nurse Manager, Shai Barnes.

Barnes says that getting these screenings early on in child’s life is critical not only for school but for life.

“It’s really easy for a child to go into school if they haven’t had one of these screenings done and be delayed in their learning because maybe they can’t see the board from where they are sitting or they cant hear as well as other children. So, doing these screenings so early in a child’s life really helps identify those needs and we can make referrals out to providers who can help them,” said Barnes.

The Health Department will be offering these services to Bulloch County families up until Thursday at 4:30 p.m.