WAIT’S KILLING GRANNY
An 83-year-old Long Island woman with cancer says she’s run into a “brick wall” trying to get the coronavirus vaccine this week amid the state’s troubled rollout.
“The people in charge have money but somebody dropped the ball from the top down,” Anne Foley, from West Babylon, said Thursday. “I really am frustrated. I’m almost in tears sometimes. It shouldn’t have been this way.”
Foley, who is a breast-cancer survivor and was recently diagnosed with lymphoma, said she’s been trying all week to get an appointment for the lifesaving shot — but was thwarted by a tough-to-navigate system and a lack of information.
She says she called the state Health Department, town officials, pharmacies, her doctors and even her local union — but only received a message that her request couldn’t be processed due to a large volume of calls.
“It’s like hitting a brick wall. There’s no place you can go,” said Foley, who is a retired government worker. “Stop and just take me to the mortuary — because I haven’t got a chance in hell to survive.”
“Please help. Help senior citizens,” she said.
Some Suffolk County pols pointed the finger squarely at Gov. Cuomo’s vaccine plan for being riddled with problems — including inoculation sites that are difficult to get to, glitchy online systems and a failure to communicate eligibility criteria.
It has left scores of New Yorkers age 65 and older — who are now eligible for vaccinations in New York — frustrated and confused, they said.
“We find ourselves in utter chaos,” state Sen. Phil Boyle (R-Huntington) said at a press conference Thursday. “This is not a one-off. Millions of New Yorkers have no idea when or where they can receive their lifesaving shots and feel totally abandoned by their state government.”
The state began doling out vaccines in mid-December but has come under fire for a sluggish rollout — as has much of the country — and overly tough restrictions that made most seniors ineligible for the shots until Cuomo caved to pressure this week.
Unlike New York City, which has its own system for scheduling vaccine appointments, Suffolk County’s sparse Web site just directs users to the state’s portal and help line. The state sign-up page lists a number of locations that are not open yet or have no spare appointments.
State Sen. Alexis Weik (R-Patchogue) said there’s been a flood of calls to her office by bewildered residents.
A Suffolk County official told The Post it has run out of vaccine doses for the week, making it difficult to schedule appointments. “Suffolk County has actionable plans and the infrastructure in place to administer at least 6,500 vaccines . . . we simply need vaccines to be able to get them into arms,” a county representative said. Since the beginning of the December roll
out and Monday, 47,711 people in Suffolk have been vaccinated, data show.
A spokeswoman for the county Health Department noted the state has access to only 300,000 vaccines per week while 7 million people are now eligible to get them — echoing an argument made by state officials.
But data have shown many of the doses sent to the Empire State so far have yet to make it into people’s arms. The state opened up its first mass vaccination sites only this week, including a drive-thru site at Jones Beach, which opened Thursday. But Foley noted many sites are difficult for seniors to access because they no longer drive.
“How are we going to get there? Why don’t they open the senior citizen centers to give the vaccine?” the elder said.