Now that people age 65 and over are eligible for vaccination, large health care providers are receiving a flurry of calls about when and where.
One of those callers was Ron Shalita, 70, who called the Kaiser appointment line around 6 a.m., Thursday.
He says he waited about 45 minutes to speak to someone, who told him to contact his primary care doctor, who in turn sent him back to the appointment line, which by then had a wait time of 4-6 hours.
When he called back later, the wait time had narrowed … to 3 to 5 hours.
On the phone with a reporter, he said, “I have a private line, and Iâm actually on hold on that line. And Iâm going to check in at 4:30, which would mark about three hours, [to] see if Iâm still on hold.”
Three hours did the trick. Shalita was able to schedule an appointment for January 28.
Pam Hatayama is a Kaiser member in the same age group. She knows someone who got an appointment, at a different location than she usually visits. That would be fine with her.
“I would gladly go anywhere to go and get the vaccination,” she said Thursday.
She reports waiting two hours and 45 minutes to get through before giving up. Friday morning, she tried again at 7 a.m. and it took an hour and 45 minutes before a nurse answered.
“Bingo!” Hatayma wrote in a text.
She and her husband both landed slots at their regular Oakland facility. The best part: The appointments are for Saturday.
In a statement, a Kaiser spokesperson acknowledged the long wait times and said not everyone who is elible will be able to make an appointment right away because of limited supplies of vaccine. An online scheduling system should be working sometime next week, he said.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting similarly frustrating experiences for patients at Sutter Health and Stanford Health Care. Sutter told the paper it would be staffing an appointment line over the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend, and that an online portal would be available soon.
âPolly Stryker and Jon Brooks
Copyright 2021 KQED