It all began early in the morning of Tuesday, February 9, when I received a message on My Tower Health Portal that I needed to schedule an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccination. I was so excited I clicked on Chestnut Hill Hospital, but there were  no appointments available. I then checked all six Tower Health affiliated hospitals. No appointments available! I did this at various times during the day, in disbelief that I would receive a message to schedule an appointment when no vaccine and no appointments were available.

In desperation I called the telephone number provided and was treated very rudely and was informed that Tower had discontinued scheduling appointments on February 5. When I asked for further explanation as to why I received an important message on February 9 when appointments were no longer being scheduled I was told that all appointments through February were filled, a direct contradiction of explanation number 1.

I was then told that the message I received was an IT glitch and I was put in touch with a Web Representative. The representative gave me a Tower telephone number for those who could not navigate the internet. I was instructed to use option one. I tried but was disconnected before I could enter option one. When I complained I was told that option one had been disabled.

My point is, how can we be expected to trust our healthcare to an organization which obviously does not have the capability of sending a timely message or giving a patient an accurate explanation of a glitch?

The good news is that purely by chance I managed at 6:30 a.m. on February 13 to schedule an appointment for Phoenixville Hospital, through the Tower portal.

Mary C. McGovern
Chestnut Hill