First-day of H1N1 shots meant 3 hours of waiting
October 27, 2009
Jennifer Yang
STAFF REPORTER
On Monday, the needles came out, the sleeves rolled up, and in Whitby, the waits were long.
Really, really long.
"I've been waiting an hour and 50 minutes," said Whitby resident Cassie Kastelic, at 5 p.m. She and her two teens were standing outside one of Ontario's first temporary H1N1 vaccination clinics and hadn't even made the front doors.
"I certainly expected an indoor setup; it just feels like it was not well thought out," said Kastelic. "It's like it's a third world country."
By the time the Kastelics got through the lines, the paperwork, and received their shots, it was 6:30 p.m.
Daunting lineups and autumnal chill weren't enough to deter 800 people from getting that tiny jab that just might save their lives, said site manager Kim Davis.
"It's more than we anticipated," said Davis, an assistant manager with Durham's public health department. "As a second wave of the pandemic has started ... I think more people are aware now that this is happening," she said.
Away from the queues, though, skepticism about the vaccine continues in the general public.
An intensive-care doctor who was on the front lines in hard-hit Winnipeg during the first wave of H1N1 said he's astonished by public ambivalence, and says it's time for authorities to be blunt about the message. "Quite frankly, the fact that people are saying they aren't going to get vaccinated just blows me away because I think it's an absolute no-brainer, especially when you understand what's going on here," Dr. Anand Kumar told a major conference on critical care in Toronto on Monday.
"Do we have media here? I was going to say you have to be an idiot not to get the vaccine, but I won't say that," he told 400 health professionals and a few journalists who let him know they were present.
"It was bizarre, it was frightening, it was startling," Kumar said of last spring's outbreak. "These patients were coming at you really sick – the sickest group of patients I have seen in my life."
People queuing in Whitby didn't need convincing. Not everyone showing up was at high risk.
"I called the department of health line," said Anne Robertson, a dental clinic nurse. "I didn't really fall into the (priority) category but they said nobody would be turned away."
The clinic felt like a natural disaster emergency centre. Workers in bright vinyl vests hurried about carrying megaphones, and weary-looking people sat in waiting areas while children's wails filled the air.
Tirzah Chung, 36, who is 32 weeks pregnant, decided not to wait for adjuvant-free vaccines that are coming next week. The only downside, she said, was standing in line for 2 1/2 hours. "My pelvis really hurts," she laughed.
With files from Theresa Boyle
Toronto Star
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