Brenda Baer: The state has made a mess of the vaccine process

To The Daily Sun,

Clearly the State of New Hampshire has failed miserably to take care of their elderly during this time in the COVID epidemic.

We seniors were promised vaccines through the 1B time period. However, the tools they gave us to get the vaccine were arduous, impractical, lengthy and didn’t work for too many.  

I was fortunate to get confirmation of my request for registration 10 minutes after 8 a.m. on Jan. 22, the first day to register. This was followed with a pre-registration form which I started to complete. You had 60 minutes to complete this form and then it would be deleted and your sign up as well. Halfway through the form I ran into a question that couldn’t be answered and couldn’t move on, so I called 211 to get help in determining what was needed. I was unable to get through when my time expired on the form and when I did get through, they preregistered me again and said I would get another form to fill out. This was on 1/25 and the timeline was to be 48 to 72 hours for its arrival. It is now 11 days and still no form.

In the meantime the state of New Hampshire sent out a questionnaire to determine if I had received vaccination date. A Yes or No answer. I said No. I still haven’t heard from them.

On Feb. 4 I called 211 again and had no luck. On Feb. 5, after an hour and 20 minutes, someone  came on the line and I was immediately disconnected. I had to start over. I was able to by-pass COVID line and get someone on the regular 211 line who tried to help me register by phone  but was unable to do so. He would send me another  preregistration form.

These are just the bare bones of attempts. There are many, many others out there with more horror stories and more anxiety. Why have they been dealt this bad hand.  Some of the questions are ridiculous like how many parking meters do you see in a picture or how many bicycles do you see, etc. Scrambled letters for you to identify. Please, what do they have to do with being over 65 and supposedly qualified to receive a vaccine. Surely your ID with proof of birth and address is all they require.  If they need to know gender or ethnicity, that can be noted at time of vaccine. Sounds so simple. Must be wrong. Make it harder for them. I have three children living outside of N.H. who have their vaccine with no problems

I am 94 with an aortic aneurysm and there are many more of us who want something done.

Update: I sent a version of this letter to someone in government, who passed it along to someone in a position of authority and I received my shot on Friday.

Brenda Baer

Laconia