I can’t get a Covid jab for my husband

[Banabarama]

Hello

I don’t know whether I’m alone here but I cannot seem to get a Covid jab for my husband, aged almost 79, house bound, unable to walk or stand or communicate properly.

I have phoned our local surgery 3 times and have been fobbed off with fictitious dates or, the latest - one week ago - “we will give you 24 hours notice when we are ready

I’m feeling really frustrated and upset.

I’m due to have mine next week (I am 67 so have just received an invitation) but it seems wrong that I’m having mine before he has his. I am starting to feel that he will never have his because I don’t know what to do next!

is there some kind of policy against dementia patients who are living at home? I can’t find reference to this on the internet.

Can anyone give me a guiding hand on this?

barbara

 

[nae sporran]

That seems a bit odd, Barbara. Our surgery was pretty vague too, but we got a letter from the NHS offering my partner a chance to book a date at the football stadium local vaccination centre. Friends over 70 have had their vaccine too. Book a coronavirus vaccination - NHS (www.nhs.uk) was the website by which I booked her appointment. If you have your husband's hospital number it may be worth trying. Sorry, that's the best I have.

 

[spandit]

My father, also 79, got an NHS letter so I booked it online. Annoyingly, we had to travel some distance to get it and on the same day, our local surgery started doing jabs so if we'd waited a day or so we could have gone locally. He had the Oxford jab and it was a few days of hell with the side effects.

 

[canary]

I think if you are housebound the GP passes the name and address over to a community team who go round and vaccinate. Obviously they cannt do as many in a day as they have to travel. This is different from the NHS hubs and the GP, but I dont know how you would go about contacting them

 

[jennifer1967]

i think its the housebound they are having difficulties immunising. my gp refers to a housebound team and leave it to them. i was put on the shielding list yesterday so should have it sooner but you need to check like nae sporran suggests. i think they are trying to do as many people as quick as they can so going to home seems to fallen by the wayside a bit

 

[Banabarama]

Thank you for your replies. I guess i will
need to be patient but I am anxious he is not forgotten. He has 8 carers including me so there is a lot of coming and going in this house!

 

[Kay111]

Hi @Banabarama - I had this issue with trying to get my housebound dad a jab a few days ago. I was being shunted from one telephone number to another and no one would give me any information. I was really worried that dad would slip through the cracks and so I chased up a few avenues (getting in touch with my local Clinical Commissioning Group, messaging my council's health and wellbeing team - I was lucky that a friend knew someone who worked there) and lo and behold my dad is scheduled to be having a visit today (fingers crossed!!).

The main issue I think is that the communication has been really poor, and that anxiety is terrible, I completely understand how you feel. From what I gather it's exactly as @canary says, most GPs will have had to delegate to the housebound team and that is why it's hard to get answers. If they were better at explaining things there wouldn't be so much anxiety. But having spoken to those I messaged, I do feel reassured they are working their way through as best they can. It's just taking time because of logistics. It's a shame that they haven't communicated to this to everyone sitting at home waiting anxiously

My main advice is to make sure that your husband is on the housebound list. If you haven't already, ask your GP to check while you're on the phone. And you know what, I wouldn't feel bad about chasing every few days. I hate making a nuisance and I felt so bad when I raised the issue - the individuals on the ground are working as hard as they can and I really appreciate them. But sometimes they might not realise there's an issue on a policy level until enough people have raised it.

Anyways, good luck and I hope your husband is vaccinated soon.

 

[Banabarama]

Thank you for your reply, Kay. We’ll see what happens next week. I just wish I’d toned down my email to the GP!