Huddled like cattle at one of two vaccination clinics for high-risk people - outside in November, in the cold elements as directed by our government -is the best our billions in tax dollars can get us in regards to our health during a crisis.

Five points

Point No. 1. No bathrooms, no feeding areas, no sitting, no warmth, with pregnant women having to stand for a interminable wait, to help save two lives - that's the situation our health minister and Eastern Health put us in. Anyone with a bit of common sense can see the flaws in just about every component of the plan.

Point No. 2. Lawbreakers get priority treatment, and our huge stadiums get saved for Royal visits, while we are in a survival-of-the-fittest game, endorsed by government. Prisoners should be the last to get anything. Can we sue government because a criminal got my child's vaccine?

Point No. 3. Eastern Health and our Health Department are not equipped to deal with our health matters. If this were handled any worse, you would have to poke people in line, in the eye, with a stick. Until we wake up to that reality and demand better, we will continue to be treated like sheep, permitting these people to dictate who shall die.

Point No. 4. Jerome Kennedy deviating and blaming line-jumpers and the public. Let's get this point correct, Minister of Health, it was your department and Eastern Health that is to blame for the planning and co-ordination - not the public. While we may be easy targets, it does not lessen the fact that your government dropped the ball - again.

Point No. 5. We should all be more scared and concerned about the ability of our Health Department, and its obvious incompetence to manage such a simple task, than about getting the H1N1 virus. Even in Nova Scotia, they had a plan to vaccinate pregnant women on set dates, offer vaccines at doctors' offices, and better yet, permit employers to get their employees vaccinated at work.

Did the clowns responsible for our health ever consider the added dangers of hundreds of people huddled in tightly packed groups outside in the cold for five to six hours? How many levels of management are to blame for this event? Get your heads out of your backsides and try taking a look around at how others manage to handle large groups of people. Poor planning and a lack of simple organization is embarrassing and disgusting, resulting in compromised high-risk individuals outside in November.

At the very least, you should be able to follow someone else's example. A simple plan could have been high-risk first and foremost, vaccinate children in schools where they are normally done, and utilize a facility that can hold foreseen numbers. What if this was a real full-blown panic?

Dean Penton

Portugal Cove-St. Philip's