Shots Fired


October 2023 – So, to start off the Fall season…

Gloria and I decided to get caught up with our Flue and Covid shots.

The extreme media frenzy has died down as has mask wearing. But the risk is still around as both of these maladies mutate into new varieties. Always have, always will.

I logged both of us into a CVS pharmacy for appointments to get our shots. Long registration and questionnaire but all went well, or so it seemed.

Started to receive SMS messages confirming appointments and a link to use to notify when we arrive at pharmacy to receive the shots.

At time and date, I used the web link to announce we had arrived at pharmacy (on time) to receive our inoculations. Inside we were waved off (told) to proceed to the waiting area.

20 minutes after our prescribed appointment time a pharmacist eventually came running up to us apologizing for their delay. He had just arrived at the store and discovered we were waiting. Another person with a later appointment joined us at his appointed time. 30 minutes after ours.

The pharmacist had both Gloria’s and my inoculation information totally wrong. Good thing there is a check process before receiving the shots. The information on the message app and the store website was correct, but the pharmacist had somehow received an incorrect printout from the system.

He left us in the customer shot area and went to the back to the pharmacy area to “straighten things out”. We could hear him raising “Holy Hell” with the staff on duty. That took another 10-15 minutes. The fellow after us decided to just leave and not deal with the mess.

The pharmacist did return with the proper information and we received the proper inoculations. But what a freaking mess of mis-communications.

It’s certainly due to miss or untrained staff and “the new era” dependency on all medical information now processed through phone apps and patient data entry into computer systems.

What I did on the patient side was completely correct and accepted by the system. The foul-up was on the pharmacy and staff ignorance on proper procedure.

Also evident was under-staffing in the pharmacy for whatever reason. Illness, lack of skilled assistants, or store budget cuts. Whatever, it is the patient/customer that gets the short end.

Maybe it was the extra staff that got shots fired??


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