THOSE behind the walk-in vaccination clinic at Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre were on a hiding to nothing when it opened for business on Monday morning.
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If there'd been tumbleweeds blowing around out the front after a couple of hours, the complaints would have been loud and insistent.
A waste of money. A waste of Australian Defence Force labour. A waste of everyone's time.
As it was, there was an ant trail (as seen from above) stretching from BMEC to the William and Keppel streets Machattie Park intersection, around the corner and well beyond.
The clinic was so popular that the capacity had been reached within the first hour.
Unfortunately, that also led to complaints.
There should have been more supply. People shouldn't have been made to wait so long when they had no chance of getting in. The strong public demand should have been anticipated.
These are uncertain times, but we should remember that the health system, like so many of us, is working a lot of this stuff out as it goes along.
The defence force walk-in clinics didn't even exist until relatively recently and if there are still kinks to be ironed out in their operation, it can't be for a want of trying.
We're being swamped with information at the moment - COVID case numbers, lockdown adjustments, tweaks to restrictions - and frustration or anger or exasperation are natural by-products.
But the beginning point for all of us should be an assumption that the health system - doctors, nurses, bureaucrats, administrative staff - want the Delta strain outbreak to be over as much as the rest of us do.
Here's hoping for a strong finish on Saturday to the BMEC walk-in clinic - and an uncontroversial finish. This brief addition to the city has been a good news story and deserves to end that way.
