VACCINE: A shot of stress

The 65 and older COVID-19 rollout was less than perfect. In fact, it was a disaster.

Panhandle Health, who had told people to call to make an appointment, had their phone line crash, never to return after many hours. First the line was busy. Then the message was that it would be a 140-minute wait. My daughter finally called another number only to be told rudely the phone line crashed and that shots were gone. There were no messages online that there was no access.

Northwest Specialty Hospital had their site crash also and not return, but when called at least nicely said the shots were gone. So the next try will be Kootenai Health again.

Can’t we do better than this? Can’t we set up a call center or online access that can handle large numbers of calls in a pandemic. Where are the larger clinics available with possible drive-throughs or trying to get more pharmacies involved?

A friend from Pocatello just called and said he made an appointment easily Monday. I continue to hope that who is doing the organizing in Coeur d’Alene will work at trying to treat our seniors better and find a way to let people know when it’s a waste of time to keep trying. We are all advised to get the vaccine as soon as possible for safety, especially with the new variants, but the stress of trying to do that may get us first.

JUDY BUNDY

Coeur d’Alene