Long waits remain at Pickering H1N1 clinic for priority cases

PICKERING -- Armed with lawn chairs and toys and games for the kids, hundreds of residents once again settled in for a long wait at H1N1 vaccination clinic in Pickering Town Centre on Monday.

It was 1 p.m., an hour before the clinic was set to open and the line already stretched all along the upstairs of the mall.

Marin Leighton, of Ajax, was among those camped out on a lawn chair. She arrived around 12:30 p.m.

"Because I'm pregnant, I won't be able to stand up, definitely not for four hours," she said, describing the wait time she expected. "I just hope I get in, I'm due in 12 days."

Those near the front of the line had been waiting for hours already.

Kim and Steve Lindstone arrived at 7:30 a.m. with their two children, four-year-old Brayden and eight-year-old Kaitlyn. The Brooklin couple said they chose Pickering because they could wait inside.

"We were under the impression it was open at noon," said Mr. Lindstone.

That information came from a Toronto television station and others in line said they'd heard the same thing. It wasn't the case.

The Lindstones said they braved the wait and pulled their kids out of school because of what they'd heard about the flu.

"It's better to be safe than sorry, we keep hearing about the shortages," said Mr. Lindstone.

The couple said the focus was to get the kids vaccinated; their eight-year-old daughter has asthma, fitting the criteria for priority cases, but if the vaccine was available to them also they would get it. But as they waited in line, it wasn't clear whether that would be the case or not.

Christina Easey, a nurse who has already been vaccinated, was waiting in line with a family member, Trida Easey. Trida came to get the vaccine because she helps take care of her father, who is ill. The two had been in line since 8:30 a.m. and said they too had heard the Pickering clinic might open at noon.

Christina Easey said she thought most people in line knew the focus was on priority cases.

"Everyone in the line knows, they read up on it, they're aware of it."

But a health department worker making her way up and down the line did not ask whether people were priority cases. Instead she asked if they had flu-like symptoms and stamped hands with the date.

To help clarify who should be getting the vaccine, health department staff planned to start handing out flyers to those waiting in line on Monday.

Jazin Bond, manager of public health, nursing and nutrition for the Durham Region Health Department, said the goal is for people to make the determination before they wait in line for hours.

"Right now, we're doing everything we can to make sure the people who are in line and the people who are coming in the door fall into those priority populations," she said. "But, by the time people get through the process and get up to the clerk, we're going to immunize them either way."

Ms. Bond said the fact that people ultimately won't be turned away should not be taken as an invitation for those outside the priority groups to join the line-ups.

"The risk for severe illness and hospitalization is highest for people in the priority groups, those people need to go first," she said.

People from six months to 65 years of age with chronic medical conditions -- such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease and weakened immune systems -- are among the priority groups, along with pregnant women with chronic medical conditions or who are more than 20 weeks pregnant, healthy children from six months old to under five years old, people in remote communities, health care workers and household contacts and care providers of persons at high risk who cannot be immunized or who may not respond to vaccines.