For several days now, since Friday, I had a confirmed booking for my first vaccine shot at a local pharmacy. I was scheduled to get my shot tomorrow at 3pm.
This afternoon, I was napping in bed and I had fallen asleep with my phone in my hand. I was woken up by my phone ringing. I looked and call display showed the number of the pharmacy. I answered the phone, thinking they were just confirming my appointment. No, it was actually quite the opposite. The gentlemen who called me wanted to know if I had booked an appointment for tomorrow at 3pm. I said yes. He then informed me that the pharmacy was all out of doses of vaccine and they wouldn’t be able to honour my appointment. How did they just run out of doses? Why would they even make appointments available if they didn’t have the doses to back it up?
I understand I don’t have all the information behind the missing doses but it does seem odd to send out confirmation e-mails when the pharmacy couldn’t actually confirm the booking. Maybe they were depending on a new batch arriving for tomorrow and the batch wasn’t delivered and it was out of their control.
Not all was lost though. The gentleman on the phone said that they would have more shots on Thursday and Friday of this week and I could re-schedule for then. I asked if he could re-schedule me but he said he couldn’t. If I wanted a new time slot, I’d have to book again through the pharmacy web site. He even told me to hurry as he said that he was the one that just pushed the button to open up the available slots on Thursday and Friday. I thanked him and luckily I had the link to the booking site available on my computer. I rolled out of bed and got to work to book myself for an 11:30am appointment on Thursday.
I’m hoping this appointment won’t get cancelled as well but who knows. The vaccine supply situation in Canada is constantly in flux. I’ve wait for well over a year for a vaccine shot, so I guess another 48 hours isn’t so bad. In the meantime, I need to continue to be safe and smart.