On February 4, Kristen reached a COVID vaccine appointment on the Gloucester County mega-website at Rowan College in South Jersey on Saturday.
According to her, a medical condition made her eligible for the shot, but her grandmother, who turns 95 next month, needs it more.
“I want to give her an appointment,” said Kristen, who only wanted to identify by her first name.
Kristen said she called the state line and a representative said it would be possible to transfer an appointment, but it could not be done within their system. ‘They referred me to the Gloucester County Department of Health, with whom I then spoke, and they led me back to the 855 number of the state. Both point us both in the other direction. ”
Kristen said she wanted to bring her grandmother to the site, but it’s not an option to hope things work out.
“It’s a very big case and a very big outing, and it’s going to take her a few days to recover from her, and we can not stand her a ‘maybe’,” she said. .
The state Department of Health has not said whether there is a policy on the transfer of appointments across the country, but recommends people contact the individual site to see if it can be accommodated.
“For vaccination sites with their own scheduling system, the individual should contact the site to see if they can accommodate the change,” spokeswoman Nancy Kearney said. “If the appointment was made through a website using the New Jersey Vaccine Scheduling System, they can call the call center for assistance.”
When Scott, who did not want her surname used, tried to change an appointment on the mega-website Burlington County in the Moorestown Mall, he said he and his 85-year-old grandfather had been turned down.
He said he first called the site’s helpline to see if he could transfer the shot, and the automated system said any changes should be made to the vaccination site. But when the couple arrived Monday, a representative of Virtua Health, which runs the site, said they could not make the exchange.
“I asked for a reason, and they did not have one and they would not allow my grandfather to receive the vaccine unlike me,” he said.
“An 85-year-old will never be able to get a vaccination appointment with the system set up, and the fact that you can not transfer an appointment to a more deserving person is just wrong,” Scott said. ‘The bookings were basically who got the link first and seniors had no chance of getting bookings. I thought I was doing the right thing. ”
Gov. Phil Murphy said at a coronavirus briefing last week that he likes to hear stories about “the cases where people withdraw and allow other defenseless people to address them.”
As for Kristen, the website in Gloucester County told NJ Advance Media that she could not transfer her appointment.
“There is no way to change appointments to give it to someone else,” a provincial spokesman said, referring additional questions to the state because “this is their system and process.”
Kristen said she was disappointed to hear that, and she hopes officials can make changes in the future so that “the next granddaughter who wants to give her lap to her nearly century grandmother will be able to do so without it happening.”
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Karin Price Mueller can be reached at [email protected].