Despite a few bumps in the road, the vaccine rollout in New Hampshire has been relatively smooth. But one frustrated Granite Stater tells us, there’s a group of people eligible for the vaccine right now, that just can’t seem to get one.
For Franklin resident Nancy LeVinus, booking a COVID-19 vaccine for her mom was a breeze.
“She will be fully vaccinated by the end of February and we are very grateful for that,” LeVinus said Sunday.
She was hoping it’d be that easy to schedule a shot for her husband, who has several underlying medical conditions, but that’s not been the case.
“We’re going on week four and we have heard nothing from the state,” she said.
Under New Hampshire’s rollout plan, people with existing conditions are eligible for the vaccine right now but cannot access appointments independently. They need their doctors to do it for them.
“I feel like a large cohort of people have been put into a situation that they can’t control,” LeVinus said.
Since Jan. 22, LeVinus says they’ve been bounced back and forth between her husband’s doctors who say they’ve entered his name in the system, and 211 operators who say they can’t find it.
“Both times they indicated there is a huge problem, a backlog of people in this situation,” she said. “In fact, the operator knew why I was calling before I even explained the situation.”
So, NBC10 Boston took these concerns to Perry Plummer, the head of the state’s vaccine rollout team.
“It’s a grouping of people that has had those problems, but we are cleaning that up, and calling those people as recently as this weekend,” Plummer said.
He admits the process has been especially difficult for those with underlying conditions, but he says his team is reaching out and fixing the problem as we speak.
“We said it would take us until the end of March to get everyone in 1B vaccinated and we still feel we are on that timeline,” Plummer said.
After hearing from us, Plummer actually called LeVinus to straighten out the situation for her husband.
He says if anyone eligible in phase 1B has not been able to make an appointment yet, call 211, or email covidvaccinescheduling@dhhs.nh.go.
