Your anticipated wait time is unknown: How do those with precarious legal status access the COVID-19 vaccine?
Dr. Liz Fitting is an anthropologist and professor at Dalhousie University. Along with a group of frontline workers, migrant rights advocates, migration scholars, health policy researchers, and critical health care practitioners, she called on the Government of Nova Scotia to address the inequities endemic in the Province’s Vaccine rollout plan. While several important changes were made to the website and the Province did eventually designate the Newcomer Health Clinic a vaccine-site, little has been done to authentically ensure access for those migrants with precarious legal status in the Province. She reflects on her experience of booking COVID-19 vaccines for approximately forty temporary foreign workers.
I signed the April 6 open letter to the Ministry of Health and Wellness in Nova Scotia calling for meaningful access to vaccines for those without permanent residency and migrants in our province. But the process of trying to book vaccine appointments for temporary foreign workers in this past month has made it clearer to me that the rhetoric about such workers being essential is just that: rhetoric.
As part of my research as a university professor, I had been interviewing a temporary foreign worker from Mexico via telephone about their work and migration history. José had been hired on contract as part of the temporary foreign worker program to come to the province and work a short season in food processing in one of the province’s rural areas. I happened to ask if he had been vaccinated. After he said that no, he hadn’t, he asked if I could help him book a vaccination appointment for him and some of his co-workers. Because his English was limited and I knew they wouldn’t be able to book via the online system without a Nova Scotia health number, I --of course-- said yes. I called the phone line throughout the day trying to get through, and then was on hold. If you have tried to call, you know it can take up to 45 minutes to speak to someone, maybe longer. When I made it through the booking person explained what information I needed, José and I texted back and forth to make sure I had the correct information, but there were no appointments available in the area. It was explained to me that I need to check the website regularly and when I see spots open up, to call the phone line. Over the next couple days, I checked the website every hour and then called when I could. I managed to book 4 appointments. After José was vaccinated, I said if he had co-workers who needed help booking appointments, he could pass along my number. And the requests started pouring in.
With every person who contacted me (about forty people so far) I would explain that it could take a few days to find an open appointment and get through to the phone line, but I would try my best, and that I needed their name, email address and birthdate. A colleague helped me check the website regularly and call. On a couple occasions, by the time I got through to the booking person, the spots were gone, or it would be a race on the phone for us to get through my list of names before the spots were taken. One time, I got through to a booking person and while we arranging the appointment for someone, there was a glitch in booking system and it didn’t send out the usual confirmation email. I was advised that the appointment likely had been made, to send the person to the appointment any way, and that booking would try and send out a confirmation via email, but when the migrant worker arrived the pharmacist said they had no record of the person. Unfortunately, there were no more appointments that day and I would have to start over. Keep in mind that migrant workers not only need to get time off work, but they also need to ask for a mode of transportation to their vaccination appointment–sometimes at quite a distance. Although we tried to schedule the appointments in clusters so several employees could travel together, it didn’t always work out that way. Another notable problem is that without a health card number the email receipt sent out that provides proof of vaccination doesn’t open. This means that some temporary foreign workers don’t have receipts for their vaccines unless they know to request a print out, have the English skills to request it, and their vaccination location has printing capabilities. They can of course call the 1 833 number to request a copy be sent to their email, but this again means someone needs to to call and wait on hold for them. It is unacceptable that many temporary foreign workers only have receipts if an advocate volunteers the time.
During my research, I have encountered temporary foreign workers whose employers managed to arrange for their vaccine appointments; perhaps it was a more manageable task either because there were fewer migrant employees to book appointments for or they were located close to bigger cities with more appointment openings. I have also talked to folks at NS health who were very helpful and tried to find solutions. My point is that while improvements have been made to the booking system –the ability to call and book without a health card number— for some temporary foreign workers, this vaccine booking system remains inaccessible in practice.
Learn more about this at: Information Morning - NS with Portia Clark - July 15, 2021: Hear about the struggle temporary foreign worker face booking COVID-19 vaccines
Dr. Liz Fitting (Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS)