KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

At 95 years old, Li­onel Dun­can knows con­tract­ing COVID-19 could be fa­tal for him, so he joined hun­dreds of se­nior cit­i­zens at the La Ro­maine Health Cen­tre for a shot of the Sinopharm vac­cine.
The vac­cines do­nat­ed by Chi­na last month is in high de­mand.

Re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties re­port­ed an over sub­scrip­tion for ap­point­ments in May.

Mon­day’s roll­out of walk-in vac­ci­na­tions showed chaot­ic scenes as peo­ple ig­nored so­cial dis­tanc­ing pro­to­cols and crowd­ed the gates of health cen­tres.

An apol­o­gy by Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh pre­ced­ed an im­me­di­ate change of pol­i­cy for yes­ter­day’s vac­ci­na­tions with on­ly the el­der­ly whose sur­names be­gan with let­ters A-E be­ing el­i­gi­ble. But even that cre­at­ed dis­ap­point­ment, frus­tra­tion and dis­com­fort.
Dun­can with­stood se­vere hip pain as he stood in line for two hours, on­ly to be told that there were not enough vac­cines and that he would have to try again.

At health cen­tres around south Trinidad, the staff in­formed pa­tients that they were on­ly vac­ci­nat­ing be­tween 40 and 50 peo­ple.
There were hun­dreds of se­nior cit­i­zens, their chil­dren and care­tak­ers wait­ing out­side the La Ro­maine, Mara­bel­la, Ste Madeleine, Pe­nal and Siparia health cen­tre from as ear­ly as 5 am. 
A re­ject­ed Dun­can told Guardian Me­dia that he has arthri­tis, which pre­vents him from stand­ing too long. His daugh­ter Caren said the se­cu­ri­ty is­sued her a chit with the num­ber 51 and told her to wait.
“Then they cut down to 40. They said they on­ly had forty vac­cines, so we have to come back an­oth­er day. I do not know what it would be like to­mor­row. Of course, this is very frus­trat­ing,” Caren said.
One man in Mara­bel­la paced around fever­ish­ly, try­ing to get health per­son­nel to ad­dress his com­plaint that al­though he ar­rived ear­ly and was in the first 50 peo­ple in line, he got by­passed. It hap­pened when a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer is­sued chits, some to peo­ple she knew. Many in Mara­bel­la and Ste Madeleine again ex­pressed frus­tra­tion at the process, es­pe­cial­ly as some came for the sec­ond day and could not get vac­ci­nat­ed.
“You tell us to come here, based on our last names, but you on­ly have 50 vac­cines? Did you ex­pect on­ly 50 peo­ple to show up? You are not giv­ing suf­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion about how we should get this,” a man said.

As they looked at the Man­ny Ramjohn Sta­di­um in Mara­bel­la, some ques­tioned why the Gov­ern­ment was not re­cruit­ing staff and vol­un­teers to have mass vac­ci­na­tion sites and dri­ve-thru ser­vices.
While a few peo­ple pre­pared for the wait by walk­ing with fold­ing chairs, it was hard for those who use canes to stand for hours. Some sat on the road­side. De­spite po­lice on-site to en­sure crowd con­trol, there was no one en­forc­ing so­cial dis­tanc­ing rules.
There were sighs of re­lief and hap­pi­ness for those for­tu­nate enough to get the vac­cines. Joan and Ajeer Ba­hadurs­ingh were the first to ar­rive at the Mara­bel­la Health Cen­tre at 5.10 am. When the min­istry an­nounced the pol­i­cy change on Wednes­day, they de­cid­ed to try for the vac­cine.
Ajeer said the ser­vice was “nice” and the peo­ple were good.
“Ex­cel­lent” was how Joan de­scribed the ser­vice at the health cen­tre but said she sym­pa­thised with those who got turned away.
The Pres­by­ter­ian cou­ple said they felt re­lieved af­ter get­ting the vac­cine and was look­ing for­ward to church­es re­open­ing. They are en­cour­ag­ing oth­er church mem­bers to get the vac­cine.