Vaccine phone line faces huge call volumes

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This article was published 13/12/2020 (1923 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Despite making 120 calls over the weekend, one 65-year-old hospital physician couldn’t connect with an operator to book a COVID-19 vaccine appointment.

A 62-year-old acute medicine doctor called their booking experience a frustrating one — “much worse than the provincial campground booking system.”

“This is a useless system,” another physician said. “After a while I just gave up.”

These are among the messages Doctors Manitoba has received since the province’s COVID-19 vaccine appointment system opened Saturday.

The province has reported receiving 100,000 calls on the immunization appointment phone line within the first day of operations — but many eligible health-care workers haven’t had any success in securing a slot. 

The province sent out an internal memo to health-care professionals with details about initial immunization criteria and a 1-844 number to call to set-up an appointment for next week.

Older health-care professionals whose work involves direct contact with patients are eligible, although appointments are being scheduled on a first-come, first-serve basis. 

The booking number was not made public to avoid a system overload, but a provincial spokesperson said Sunday members of the public who aren’t eligible have started to call the 24-7 line, which launched Dec. 12.

Health-care workers have since reported lengthy wait times to speak with someone, if they haven’t been immediately disconnected.

Doctors Manitoba spokesman Keir Johnson told the Free Press the process has been “very frustrating” to date — evidenced by the organization hearing from “dozens and dozens” of eligible doctors who haven’t had any success in booking a time.

“These are older, more at-risk doctors caring for patients in higher risk areas such as ICUs, COVID hospital wards or personal care homes,” Johnson said in an emailed statement.

Since the inaugural shipment of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine expected this week is limited, only 900 appointments are being made available to Manitobans.

The patient criteria includes health-care workers who work in critical care units and were born on or before Dec. 31, 1970; those who are employed in acute or long-term care facilities and were born on or before Dec. 31, 1960; and medical professionals with jobs at COVID-19 immunization clinics.

As of midday Sunday, approximately half of the slots remained available.

“The province is reminding Manitobans to call only for an appointment if you are an eligible front-line health-care provider,” the province said in a prepared release Sunday.

“Since opening yesterday, the booking service has received more than 100,000 phone calls and some callers were screened out as they did not meet eligibility criteria.” 

Johnson said Doctors Manitoba is hopeful an improved scheduling system will be in place in the future.

Bob Moroz, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, shared those sentiments Sunday.

In a statement, Moroz said, “it is important that frontline allied health professionals and others are able to access the vaccine smoothly and quickly.”

A provincial spokesperson for the COVID-19 immunization clinic told the Free Press that more operators will become available.

As the vaccine supply increases and more appointments at different locations become available, “the system will adapt,” the spokesperson said, adding the province is still in the planning stages. 

The first vaccinations in Manitoba are expected to take place at the University of Manitoba’s Rady Faculty of Health Sciences campus on McDermot Avenue in Winnipeg next Wednesday.

That means health-care professionals outside Winnipeg, who can secure an appointment, will have to find a way to travel to the clinic before early doses run out. The first jabs are scheduled next week and follow-ups are to take place in the new year. 

A single appointment is expected to take between 30 to 45 minutes, with a 0.3 ml shot into the muscle of an arm. Individuals must also wait for 15 minutes afterwards in the post-immunization observation area before they leave. 

— with files from Temur Durrani

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie