Health ministry: 18,000 vaccination appointment dates made available

People with e-referral for vaccination were able to receive a single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine during the May long weekend (May 1-3, in some cities also on May 4-5) without having to register.

Internet users have been reporting that after they had received their jabs on May weekend, their scheduled future appointments haven't been automatically cancelled, and they had troubles to do it manually.

"I was among the people who got vaccinated during May weekend. Today I logged in to e-patient platform to check if the appointment I had scheduled earlier has been cancelled. It turned out it hasn't. Moreover, a hotline operator told me she wasn't authorised to cancel it and told me to call the vaccination point. It means that all people who were vaccinated at walk-in stations, most likely block vaccination dates" - one internet user told TVN24.

Health Ministry spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz commented on this issue on Wednesday in TVN24. "I'm happy to inform that in the last 24 hours we've freed nearly 18,000 vaccination appointment dates" - he said and added that the ministry was calling and texting vaccinated people who had earlier scheduled appointments.

He added that further dates were being added to the system by e-health centre, and that the ministry managed to take this situation under control. "The problem has been practically solved" - he explained.

Wojciech Andrusiewicz also commented on reports that people from Warsaw were travelling to Białystok, and Kraków residents - to Rzeszów, due to shortages of vaccine. "I'm Lublin born and bred and I hear there's a station in a village near the city where all local residents have already been vaccinated. The station is still in the system and receives vaccine deliveries, registration is open" - he said.

He added that "many Lublin residents, even from the other side of the city have been choosing this station as it still has vaccines available". "Warsaw is a large city where the demand is very high, while the vaccines have been also delivered to other places in Poland. (...) where there are available vaccines, that's why people from Warsaw are choosing to go there" - Andrusiewicz said.

Asked if it was not better to redirect vaccine deliveries meant for a small village near Lublin to the city itself, where there was a higher demand, the spokesman said: "People from Lublin can easily travel 10 kilometres to that village".

"When I check the system for vaccination options in Warsaw, then it's possible to get vaccinated with AstraZeneca for instance. If someone chooses other vaccine (...), they travel to Białystok" - he said.

"This is an individual decision for each of us, to which we are fully entitled" - he added.