After getting the vaccine registration system back on track, the B.C. government is bumping up when those born in 1936 and earlier can book a vaccination appointment.
Health Minister Adrian Dix said Wednesday that starting at noon on Thursday, all health authorities will be accepting calls from those 85 years of age and older.
“Most people over the age of 90 have already booked their appointments,” Dix said.
“For all of those of you over the age of 90 you can still book your appointments. There is a lot of room on the lines and there still will be.”
Dix said Telus had improved the service it provided over the last two days. So far the province has registered 37,361 people for vaccination appointments that will start next week. This includes a total of 7,343 appointments booked in Vancouver Coastal Health.
On Tuesday, the head of one of Canada’s telecom giants apologized after a botched rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine booking system in the Vancouver Coastal Health region.
Telus CEO Darren Entwistle said his company was “sorry for the frustrations that British Columbians have experienced” trying to connect to call centres. The company was hired to provide the call centre support for the province’s second-largest health authority to book vaccine appointments.
Telus has put in place additional resources to handle phone calls in all health authorities.
On Tuesday, the province booked 12,346 vaccination appointments. This included 2,549 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region.
There were just 369 appointments booked in the health authority on Monday due to the technical issues.
“While our system had a bad day on Monday, it has responded,” Dix said.