Readers you will probably remember how annoyed I was about the debacle regarding my second Astrazeneca appointment. My philosophy is “Get Mad… Then get over it!” Obviously I needed to do something about getting the second vaccine injection quickly. An internet search revealed a number of local GP surgeries were offering the vaccine. None displayed the availability online, although a number stated they only did vaccinations on a specific day of the week. Some required you to phone for an appointment and none had a vacancy in the immediate future.
Eventually I went to the State government “RollUp” website where; after considerable faffing around; I managed to create an account and look at vaccination sites. I was also able to look at available appointments. The site with the nearest vacancy was Perth Airport, where the bookings were 15 minutes apart. My immediate thought was “If the government plans to vaccinate individuals 15 minutes apart many will die of old age before reaching their appointment date”. Nevertheless, I booked an appointment for Friday at 1.30pm.
Today I drove to the airport hub for the appointment. Needless to say the signage was woeful and I spent 10 minutes walking around attempting to find the vaccination centre. Fortunately I had allowed sufficient time. On entering there was a row of six receptionist waiting to take peoples details. I was the only arrival. There were also three security guards. One assumes they were present to either stop people fighting over the vaccine; or stealing it!
I was required to give all the details I’d previously provided online when making the appointment. Then I sat with eight others awaiting my turn. Ten minutes later I was called forward by a security guide and directed to a nurse. She went back over the information again (the third time) before giving me the injection. She was very good and I didn’t feel the injection. Next, I spent 15 minutes waiting to see if there were any adverse effects. All clear and I departed. Unlike the surgery, there was no sign of a doctor. My summary is there were three negatives from today’s experience
- The government website is poorly structured
- Signage at the location was poor
- Too much duplication in administration
The one positive was the painless injection. At least I am vaccinated.
On returning home we went online and attempted to book Jan’s appointment for her second AZ. The website would not allow us to create an account for Jan as “The email account has already been used!” I retried using an alternative email account but the website defaulted back to my personal details which I couldn’t change.
Eventually I was able to overcome this problem and register Jan’s details. Bear in mind I booked my appointment at the airport centre two days ago. Today there are NO vacant appointments from today until the end of the year! Yet there was a surplus of staff and few people waiting for the vaccine. However I was able to change the location and find an appointment at another government vaccination centre.
To date our experience with this COVID vaccination program is it’s a fiasco!
2 comments :
It seems whether you like him or loathe him that BoJo actually got something right here in the UK with our vaccination programme or at least the person he put in charge knows his onions.
However it can still fall down if you have a poor local GP practice (like ours) but people where they can bypass them as the big centers and pop-up extras seem to have it well sorted.
Dave I'm not sure about Boris. The experts say 80% of the population needs to be vaccinated and he's gone with 70%. Interestingly the Federal govt here has also adopted the 70% target. Based on our current rollout we should reach the 70% target by 2054 :-)
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