Villager Richard Behrendt and his wife manned three phones at 7:59 a.m. Monday in anticipation of the opening of the Sumter County Health Department and the availability of a limited number of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
“My wife and I used three phones, dialed over 400 times, and were still unable to reach the Sumter County Health Department COVID appointment line,” he said. “Clearly this system is not working.”
The Behrendts, who live on Alistar Court in the Village of Winifred, had a neighbor who died last year after being infected with the Coronovirus.
George Hilton of the Village of Bridgeport at Lake Sumter also started dialing the health department bright and early Monday morning.
“After trying to get through for 45 minutes and getting a busy signal, I finally reached a staff member. I was promptly told that all the appointments for that day had already been scheduled and that I needed to call back next Wednesday, Jan. 6 to schedule an appointment,” Hilton said.
Like so many other residents of The Villages, he is desperate to obtain the vaccine for the potentially deadly Coronavirus, which in 2020 dramatically dampened the lifestyle in Florida’s Friendliest Hometown.
“I believe that the health department should seriously attempt to deliver the vaccines as soon as possible to as many qualifying individuals as possible,” Hilton said.
Last week, Dr. Sanford Zelnick of the Sumter County Health Department announced that 2,500 doses of the Moderna vaccine had been obtained. Many of those doses of vaccine are being directed to The Villages Health.
That has some Villagers crying foul.
“The Villages Health indicated to me on a phone call that their current plan is to offer the vaccine to their existing patients only,” said Elizabeth Tornow of the Village of Fenney.
She pointed out that The Villages Health is a private for-profit healthcare provider which does not accept all insurance.
“Even though there is no cost for the vaccine or its administration if they only provide it for their patients that effectively eliminates vaccine availability from them to anyone who has insurance that they do not accept,” she said.
