A doctor has spoken about his aim to vaccinate as many people as he can as an attempt to protect the population in rural north Wales from Covid.
In the last 18 months, Dr Eilir Hughes, who is also the leader of the Dwyfor Primary Care Cluster, has made it his duty to protect communities in rural areas that may be facing particular problems not seen in the cities.
Now, the GP from Pen Llyn on the Llyn Peninsula has continued with his tireless work by helping out as many people as he can with vaccinations in the area in light of the worries surrounding the Omicron variant.
At the beginning of December, Dr Hughes decided to vaccinate 4,000 people in one weekend. So far, he has reached nearly 20,000 people.
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The doctor works at Ty Doctor surgery in Nefyn, which is based nearly 50 minutes away from the nearest vaccine centre in Bangor.
"The response we've received has been fantastic - we've had people come here from as far as Anglesey and Conwy," he said.
"We were really keen to offer the booster to people of the area. We have been offering the mNRA Pfizer throughout this year. So we took advantage of the fact that we had a stock and distributed it to as many people as we could.
"We made sure that we didn't just keep it for people that were registered to the surgery only, because unfortunately this particular vaccine isn't easy to give out in some surgeries.
"It was quite a challenge in regards to our staff being able to run a clinic of this kind, because we had to consider how you can let 4,000 people in and out as quick as you can this time of the year.
"Also, we had to consider whether the staff could cope with the flow of people that came here. But we succeeded and I'm so glad we did."
This hasn't been Eilir's only campaign.
In the past, the doctor had opposed the Welsh Government's decision to install ozone machines in schools across Wales - a decision that was later withdrawn, he has also campaigned for better PPE for medical staff, and campaigned against people from coming across the border to stay in rural parts of Wales when cases were high.
In 2020, people from England that were planning to sit out the coronavirus epidemic in holiday homes were facing a backlash from locals over concerns they would spread the virus and overload rural health systems.
The family doctor led calls for outsiders to stay away.
"It was just a very frightening time for many," he told WalesOnline.
"I remember receiving calls and messages from people, sometimes people I didn't know, telling me that they saw people travelling to these areas.
"Before the pandemic, I had never been vocal on social media but I feel like it was necessary at this point. I took my phone, recorded a message and sent to everyone that had expressed their worries so that the message would then reach more people.
"All I said was that this pandemic was happening, rural areas like Pen Llyn couldn't deal with too many people coming here because our health system didn't have the resources, capacity or the logistics to look after them.
"It all came down to protecting my community and seeing that it was essentially under disadvantage in this situation."
Amid the Omicron fears, Dr Eilir Hughes insists that he will continue to protect communities in rural Wales that he believes are at a disadvantage.
He said: "I hope that this will be the legacy of the pandemic, in the fact that we cannot under-fund our national health service any longer, especially here in rural Wales.
"We don't have enough doctors or nurses. Our service is massively under strain and lack of investment, not just with funding but in training staff as well.
"The situation is heartbreaking, but I hope it will change for the better in the future."
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