Even as Health Minister Adrian Dix was throwing Telus under the bus Tuesday for the vaccination rollout fiasco, his own ministry’s ham-fisted messaging was causing unnecessary confusion for many anxious seniors.
The picture says it all: Dr. Bonnie Henry standing in front a giant “90+” infographic on Monday, telling British Columbians to “wait your turn” because “today, vaccine appointment bookings open for people over age 90,” and minister Dix stepping forward to repeat the same simple, authoritative mantra.
Except it wasn’t that simple. On the Sunshine Coast, in Powell River, Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton, seniors over 80 were also eligible to book appointments starting Monday. Vancouver Coastal Health released that information early enough last week that we reported it in the March 5 paper.
The VCH website spelled out the exceptions, but the provincial government site hammered home the unqualified 90+ message, and it was parroted by all the major media, which led to readers contacting us through the weekend to tell us that our information was wrong.
Call it communication as a blunt instrument. On Monday, a VCH call-centre agent even refused to book an 80-something senior from the Sunshine Coast (after he had waited for hours to get through) because the agent didn’t believe he was eligible.
Pundits, meanwhile, were scolding seniors under 90 for not waiting “their turn” and overloading the phone lines, when the pundits themselves weren’t aware that some seniors under 90, such as those over 80 on the Sunshine Coast, were doing exactly what they were supposed to do.
Reporter Sophie Woodrooffe contacted the Ministry of Health on Monday to point out the problem. There was no immediate response, but the next day a note was added to the government webpage, below the health authority links, saying that “some rural and smaller communities … may have different call-in schedules.”
The call-in delays were of course the main event in the gong show that rolled out this week, with VCH booking a pitiful 369 appointments on Monday compared to 8,722 by Fraser Health, the only health authority in the province to offer online booking. Elaine Clayden of West Sechelt fired off a letter to minister Dix, telling him that “the entire board of directors of [Vancouver] Coastal Health have badly failed their constituents, by assuming that everyone who is elderly is computer illiterate; so instead they offer us one phone number to call.”
Dix probably didn’t mind that part of the letter, since it blames VCH for something that is ultimately his responsibility as health minister, but Ms. Clayden was more inclusive in her punchline:
“The provincial government and the various health authorities have known that B.C. eventually would get the vaccines and should have been well prepared, well in advance. Instead, your failure has added much stress to an already stressed elderly population.”
The people in charge of this mess assure us that the rollout will get better and we believe them, because it couldn’t get any worse.
