How's the local COVID-19 vaccine rollout going? 2 local doctors have concerns

As an emergency room doctor with an immunosuppressed person at home, Dr. Michael Fernando was elated when he got news this week he would be getting vaccinated for COVID-19. 

Health-care workers were on the province's vaccination priority list, but before Fernando could get the shot, the province switched gears and moved those who live and work in long-term care homes to the front of the line.

The province's new goal is to get all long-term care home staff and residents vaccinated by Feb. 15

As a result, health-care workers across the London region had their vaccination appointments cancelled. 

Fernando, who has a family practice and works regular ER shifts at Four Counties Health Services near Glencoe, Ont., now believes his vaccination date will be weeks or months away. 

"It's pretty frustrating," he told CBC News. "At the beginning of the week I was eligible to get vaccinated, then this morning I found out I was not eligible." 

Fernando's frustration isn't so much that he and other front-line staff are being moved down the queue. He understands that seniors are most vulnerable and that they and the people who care for them need the vaccine. 

Vaccine rollout 'laughably terrible,' doctor says

It's more what the shift suggests to him: That the vaccination infrastructure isn't yet ramped up to a level where both priority groups can be vaccinated at the same time. 

"The vaccine rollout in our region is laughably terrible," he said. "It is a logistical challenge to be sure, but we need leaders to rise to this challenge and more importantly, they need to deliver." 

Right now, a lack of vaccine supply is the problem but Fernando believes the bottleneck could soon shift to capacity at London's lone vaccination site.

"If we're going to get tens of thousands of people vaccinated every day in our region, then we probably need to have several more vaccination centres," he said. 

Fernando isn't the only doctor exasperated.

'Everybody's upset'

Dr. Waleed Chehadi is chief of staff at St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital. He's received his first vaccine dose, but most of his staff haven't. He's frustrated they'll have to continue to risk exposure as they provide front-line care and await their turn. 

"Everybody's upset," he said. "Everybody wants the vaccine but people have variable access to getting it."

Chehadi said he often hears stories about people outside of the priority groups getting vaccinated. He also sees other regions that appear to be well ahead of London in getting shots into the arms of people in priority groups. 

"Every physician I know knows someone who isn't part of a priority group who's gotten the shot," he said. "That's resulted in e-mails and questions to me and I can't explain."

MLHU supports province's direction

Dr. Chris Mackie, the Middlesex-London Health Unit's medical officer of health, was asked Thursday about the province's decision to move health-care workers down the priority list. 

"This is a situation where there are very few doses of vaccine compared to the hundreds of thousands who want it in our region," he said. 

Mackie said the province has put the priority on people in long-term care, which he said he supports. 

"We know [care homes] are the best place to maximize the impact of the vaccine."

After residents and staff in long-term care homes are vaccinated, retirement homes are the next priority.  Mackie estimates it will take four or five weeks to get those in long-term care and retirement homes inoculated against COVID-19. After that, the priority will shift to front-line health care workers.