Hamiltonians find delays and errors on first day using provincial vaccine booking system

The province's online vaccine booking system launched Monday for those over the age of 80 is proving to be a source of frustration for some people trying to book an appointment. 

Hamilton resident Lisa Lemon said she "gave up" after "trying for over an hour to book an appointment" for her mother.

Lemon wrote on Twitter that there were close to 100,000 people ahead of her when she tried to enter the queue.

She said she got a "site corrupted" message when she clicked the terms of agreement. 

She finally managed to get through the queue but when she entered her mother's information and clicked continue, "It said 'Error site has been tampered with.'"

"This happened four times in a row before I finally gave up," Lemon said.

Lemon said she went back a couple more times about an hour later and the "exact same thing happened."

Thousands of people logged on to the COVID-19 vaccine booking system within minutes on Monday morning, with many reporting long wait times and error messages. 

All this came as Premier Doug Ford said Monday that retired Gen. Rick Hillier, the head of Ontario's vaccine task force, will leave his job in the coming weeks. Ontario reported an additional 1,268 COVID-19 cases.

'A mistake on Ontario's website. '

Former Hamilton mayor Larry Di Ianni tried to use the provincial system to book an appointment for his 90-year-old mother-in-law. He said that after waiting for 90 minutes he was told over the phone that the system is "not recognizing your mother-in-law's information ... I don't think they've uploaded all of the numbers, so try again tomorrow."

Di Ianni said, "I thought we were ready. The Premier said we were ready... When they say they are ready, and they're not ready because they haven't uploaded all the information, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth."

Stephanie Prosper tried to book vaccine appointments for her aunt, uncle and their neighbour, who are all seniors living in Niagara. 

She said there were 20,000 people in the queue when she registered at 8 a.m. and 7,000 ahead of her.

"It was an hour to get through," Prosper, who works in a COVID-19 assessment centre, told CBC Hamilton.

"It wasn't bad actually," Prosper said, adding she was able to get appointments for two out of three. 

"The only one I had issues with was my uncle who is 79 and First Nations," she said.

"Instead of just carrying me through to continue with the booking like it did for other people, it tells you to call public health and it won't let you continue booking.

"When you call Public Health of Niagara they are telling me they are not supposed to be handling that, it's a mistake on Ontario's website. I don't understand why it's different for First Nations than it is for people 80-plus," Prosper said.

'Senior folks are going to have a hard time'

Prosper said the inability of First Nations to use the system "seems like a huge barrier for people."

Additionally, she thinks senior folks in general will find it difficult to use the online system to book appointments.

She said, as much as possible, younger individuals should assist seniors to book appointments.  

"I do think our senior folks are going to have a hard time with this," Prosper said.

"I've already got six neighbours in my building who I'm going to be registering.

"I really think if people could reach out to the neighbours to assist them that would help," Prosper said.