The New Nightingale Hospital

The Nightingale Club announced on their social media sites that they are willing to offer their venue as a facility for the NHS to administer vaccines for Birmingham residents.

Located on Kent Street, The Nightingale, the self proclaimed "Legendary LGBTQ venue", are the first club in Birmingham to say that they would like to offer their venue "to assist with the vaccination rollout for free." With PM Boris Johnson having announced that 1.3 million people have already been vaccinated live on TV, there will need to be a much greater administration to the other 64.7 million UK residents. This comes after the Millennium Point Building (Curzon Street) having been administered as a vaccination centre.

Currently, the only available place to gain a vaccine is through a GP Doctors Surgery, where you must fit a criteria of being vulnerable to Covid-19. With the new release of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine alongside the already approved Pfizer vaccine, a greater amount of vaccine production and administration will be likely to occur, making the centre of Birmingham an ideal place for people to receive them.

Dan Brown, The Nightingales Events and Marketing manager, said "although it isn't confirmed if we are able to, we've got this massive venue with loads of fridge space and enough space to socially distance, being inspired by Brewdog and their campaign." Brewdog's founders Martin Dickie and James Watt announced that they are working with Parliament to say that they are willing to provide their UK bars with many to come, where they normally open an average of 30 new bars a year.

Mr Brown said "(The NHS) will come in, and realistically we will hand our venue to them to make it Covid secure and the logistics, they obviously know it more than us, we know about potting on parties and live shows!"

So far, The Nightingale has had mostly positive support, with Brown mentioning that "Southside BID (South Birmingham Council), they've been supporting us loads but we have had some backlash, as people wouldn't put two and two together. You go to a bar, get drunk and have fun with your friends but people wouldn't think clubs could administer vaccines, and it is a very unusual venue to use, but logistically it would work. People see the club as a rammed venue, people spilling drinks and being sick in the toilets but realistically that's not what its like! People would think differently of it if they saw the cleaning that has to go on, because if we didn't health and safety organisations would easily shut us down."

The Nightingales being the largest LGBTQ club in Birmingham, which poses as a great haven for the community to come to, to receive the vaccine. "Many queer people don't feel safe going to their doctors, so they would know already that its a safe and comforting place."

Charlotte Hales, a member if the LGBTQ+ community, said she "wouldn't necessarily feel more comfortable, as I don't tend to feel uncomfortable in normal medical practices because of my sexuality but it's definitely a cool story to tell! Perhaps if it were a sexual health treatment of sorts, Gales would be more because its so inclusive."

She also understood that "clubs aren't the cleanest of places... but when totally sanitised and kept clean, I don't think anyone should have any reservations. I can imagine there are groups of people who would be horrified at the thought of going into a queer venue for any purpose. Hopefully these people can see past their homophobia/ transphobia just for a few minutes to go and get the vaccine which is obviously the most urgent issue."

With the bar being the first clubbing venue in Birmingham to offer their venue, others will likely aim to do the same, and Mr Brown pleads "To all the other venues who are thinking of it, just do it!"