Editor:
I received the CVE letter as expected and wait as instructed until March 29 to call the Fraser Health COVID-19 vaccination booking centre.
As it worked out, my age came up on the same day as my CVE eligibility, so in either case I was eligible for the jab, all good at this point. I called the call centre starting at 7 a.m. and a voice recording said they had a high call volume and to call back later. OK - not unexpected.
I tried once every hour until 4 p.m. with the same result. During that time, I tried to book online as I had that option available. The website wasn’t handling the traffic and would not load - strike two.
So I tried again at 4 p.m. to call the booking centre and this time I got through. From there, I waited approximately 55 minutes before I got a real operator who asked me to be patient with him because their booking website was very slow and although this had been reported to the supervisors, nothing was being done.
So I waited for about 30 minutes with him banging his keyboard trying refresh the page to get an appointment, which in the end never happened. Without saying he was going to do this, he put me on hold with some awful elevator music and I was never taken off hold, at least as far as I know. Tomorrow is another day.
I sympathize with the call centre operator and tried to pass on my support for his frustration with a system unable to take the volume. He was a nice chap trying to do his job without much help.
Terry Cioni, Burnaby
