A WOMAN who moved to Scotland from England says she was left “at her wit’s end” trying to chase a missing vaccine appointment through the national Covid helpline.
Paola Rizzato, 48, was overlooked for her first vaccination despite registering with a GP surgery immediately after arriving in Glasgow with her husband, a healthcare worker, in March.
“The first thing I did was to register with a GP because of the vaccine - I thought ‘I don’t want to miss out’,” said Mrs Rizzato, who is originally from Italy but has lived in the UK for 26 years and has joint British citizenship.
Her husband - who is 44 - received his first inoculation at the end of December while the couple were still in England, and was invited for his second dose soon after arriving in Glasgow.
READ MORE: 'Cautious optimism' as Glasgow cases show signs of a slowdown
Mrs Rizzato suspected her appointment had been lost after several friends the same age were invited for their vaccinations.
She contacted the Covid helpline who flagged her case to the health board for investigation.
Four weeks on, however, Ms Rizzato - who previously worked in retail and would prefer to be inoculated before going back to work - still had no details of an appointment despite further calls to the helpline
She said: “I know I’m not alone. I keep seeing people online with the same situation - people older than me, in their 50s with underlying health conditions.
“There are a lot of people who should have been vaccinated weeks ago and they can’t get anywhere. It seems kind of shocking to me.
“Why can’t people just book themselves in at this point because it’s 2021 and we’re waiting for a blue letter? I’m at my wit’s end.”
After the Herald contacted NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Mrs Rizzato was finally given a vaccine appointment last night.
The health board said it was “sorry to hear Mrs Rizzato experienced difficulty in making her vaccine appointment".
The case echoes that of pollster Professor Sir John Curtice, who told the Herald he found the Covid helpline "impossible" after chasing a late second vaccination for three weeks without success.
He criticised the fact that operators on the helpline - which has been outsourced to a Californian IT giant, ServiceNow, for £780,000 - could not book appointments for people missing from the computer system, and were instead left to pass details on to health board teams.
READ MORE: Polling expert's anger over 'impossible' vaccine helpline
Prof Curtice, 67, eventually got his second jag at 15 weeks after the Herald intervened.
Yvette Lathe, a retired schoolteacher who moved from Glencoe in the Highlands to Glasgow in December, described her own experience as “infuriating”.
Mrs Lathe, 69, is registered with a GP in Glasgow but was repeatedly told she was “not on the list” during multiple calls to the helpline after failing to receive appointment letters for either her first or second jags.
“When you say ‘but how can I get on the list?’, they can’t answer,” said Mrs Lathe.
“It seems to happen when you move house and change surgery. When I told the GP about it he said ‘you’re in a black hole and you’re not the only one - even in this surgery we’ve got lots of people in the same boat’.”
Mrs Lathe finally got her first jag after a local councillor wrote to the health board and, after weeks of failed attempts to chase her missing second appointment, turned up at the Hydro hub on Sunday where a nurse vaccinator found her details using their iPad system.
She said: “If they’ve got me on the list on their iPads, then why on earth does the helpline not only say I’m ‘not on the list’ - but it has no ability to fix it?”
READ MORE: Thousands fail to show for vaccine appointments at Glasgow Hydro over weekend
Speaking during yesterday’s Covid briefing, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the Government was sending out appointments by letter to ensure that people were invited according to “clinical priority”.
However, she said that they would “explore” other options, such as letting people schedule their own appointments online - as 18 to 29-year-olds have been urged to do - as the rollout continues.
Ms Sturgeon said 22 per cent of people in the 18-29 age category had registered for appointments in the first 16 hours of the system going live on Monday.
To date, just over 70% of adults in Scotland have had a first dose, and 42% have had second doses.
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