NORRISTOWN, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) -- Suburban Community Hospital in Norristown has opened up its vaccination clinic to the general public, but thin resources make registration a challenge.
"We have 500 doses. We got about 4,000 requests for those doses," chief nursing officer Dave Schmidt said.
Schmidt says, because Suburban is a smaller hospital, it’s been a challenge to register people for their clinic.
"We had four staff members on the phone lines, eight hours straight, and we still didn't have enough support to meet all the demand," he said.
He says their online registration was so overwhelmed, it crashed 10 minutes after they opened registration.
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Schmidt says he strongly supports a centralized registration system, through either the county or the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
However, Lindsay Mauldin with the state department of health says there are no such plans at this time.
"I definitely understand how that could be frustrating," she said. "I think, again, the centralized system would not help with the limited supply that we’re working with."
But Schmidt says it is a problem, because people are signing up on as many lists as possible.
"If they sign up for my clinic here at Suburban, they also might be signing up for a spot with the county, so now they’re taking up two spots," he said.
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Suburban Community Hospital is administering the Pfizer vaccine, which requires two doses. Schmidt says they're holding back half the doses they've received to make sure the second dose is available in three weeks.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health is advising providers not to hold back half of their supply. They say the second dose will be provided. But Schmidt says they have heard otherwise and are playing it safe.