OTTAWA -- Across parts of Ontario, family physicians and pharmacists are among those inoculating residents with the COVID-19 vaccine; part of a pilot project launched by the province. 

In Ottawa, those same healthcare providers sit on the sidelines, eager for their turn to join in the vaccination efforts. 

"We just need the supply, and we need people to say we trust you; go and do it," Dr. Alykhan Abdulla says. 

Dr. Abdulla is a family physician in Manotick and the chairman of General and Family Practice for the Ontario Medical Association. 

He says family doctors in the capital are eager to begin vaccinating the public. 

"We’re going to change Ottawa and Ontario and the world by being the people that get out there and get these vaccines into people's arms," Dr. Abdulla says. 

Alongside doctors, pharmacists are eager to do their part. 

"We are highly interested since the start," Mira Tawdrous, a pharmacist in downtown Ottawa said. "We already give different kinds of vaccinations, so I don’t think it’s going to be a problem." 

Tawdrous says the pharmacy she works at has already received a number of calls from residents asking when they might be able to go in to get their vaccination. 

Across the city, pharmacies in stores like Shoppers Drug Mart and Loblaws have included notes that they are not vaccinating people at their location in their voicemail messages. 

Health experts say once these locations come online, they will be critical to the vaccine rollout. 

"There’s a huge benefit to vaccinating through multiple mechanisms including through pharmacies and family care clinicians," says Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist and a member of Ontario’s vaccine task force. 

"I really think that while they are being utilized in the vaccine effort that utilization should expand and there’s only good that can come out of this," he added. 

Dr. Abdulla says family doctors could vaccinate between 60 to 100 people per day, per doctor. That number could climb even higher if doctors are allowed to travel throughout the city. 

"We’re going to do drive thrus, mobile units, we’re going to have doctors with vaccines in little bags that will go to homes for housebound patients and we’re going to vaccinate them," Dr. Abdulla says. 

Dr. Abdulla says family doctors in Ottawa could begin vaccinations within weeks. 

Like getting vaccines to pharmacies, he says supply is slowing things down. 

"There are so many things that are up in the air and really the biggest thing that’s up in the air is vaccine supply. But within weeks we will have it here, and Ottawa is rip-roaring ready to go to get this thing going," Dr. Abdulla says.  

Dr. Bogoch says the vaccines that do go to pharmacies and doctors' offices likely won’t be the Pfizer serum. 

"Not all vaccines are really suitable for mobilizing to primary care or to pharmacies," he said. 

Bogoch says Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson - once available - are all potential candidates to be used in pharmacies and doctors' offices across the capital.