Kudos to Dr. Deena Hinshaw and the staff at AHS for getting the 75+ senior’s vaccinations up and running on Feb. 24. Shame on those seniors that feel that they are entitled and criticize because they were inconvenienced and spent hours trying to book an appointment and crashed 811 and online portal. Your ignoring the media and requests to not overload the systems contributed to this problem.
I tried both 811 and online in the morning and realized that I could not get through. I decided to wait a while and check the media posts, and when I heard they had crashed and were being worked on, I left it until the evening (6 p.m.). When I went online, the problems were fixed and I was able to timely book both myself and my wife at the same time on Monday at the Skyview Power Centre. Instructions were to wait in our vehicle until five minutes prior to our appointment time. I was pleased that we were successful and AHS was successful.
Surprise! Watching the news on Thursday, I saw the lineups and people arriving hours before their appointments and lining up. I thought the literacy rate for seniors was fairly high. Was I wrong?
AHS has worked very hard to set up a system to vaccinate thousands of seniors. This was a first try and I feel they have speedily worked on, corrected, and have developed a system that will work on future rollouts. I’m sure there will be continuing glitches and that they will continue to improve and deliver vaccinations to thousands. Keep up the good work.
To those seniors who feel entitled and they can jump the line, wake up, you are the problem. The seniors I know spend hours volunteering, helping their neighbours, and contributing to our community. This is the vast majority. Stop giving us a bad name.
John Mackenzie
St. Albert
