Ontario auditor general calls out disorganized COVID-19 vaccine booking system

The auditor general has brought attention to Ontario’s disorganized COVID-19 vaccine booking system in her annual report Wednesday after finding the province wasted millions of doses.

Ontario auditor general Bonnie Lysyk said Ontario wasted 38 per cent of COVID-19 vaccine doses between February and June because it overestimated demand for boosters.

Wastage rates varied quite a bit between public health units, and one private company reported wasting 57 per cent of its supply between May 2021 and May 2022.

Lysyk said that overall COVID-19 vaccine wastage for the province is nine per cent, or 3.4 million doses. About half of those vaccines could have been utilized with better forecasting of demand.

Lysyk also found that the government runs a disorganized booking system and doesn’t fully track adult vaccinations.

The problems with the booking services stem from the lack of one centralized system. The province created its own portal but about half of public health units are using their own, with some hospitals, pharmacies and private companies using their own methods as well.

“The continued absence of a centralized booking system (as of August 2022) increases the likelihood of unnecessary wastage continuing into the future since such no-show appointments can result in more wasted doses of vaccine,” Lysyk wrote in the report.

Multiple bookings led to about 227,000 no-shows in 2021 in the provincial booking system alone, the auditor found, which likely contributed to vaccine wastage.

“Multiple booking systems also encouraged Ontarians to ‘vaccine shop’ by registering for multiple appointments to try to get either the quickest appointment or a specific vaccine brand,” Lysyk wrote in the report.

The Ministry of Health conducted a study of procedures and effectiveness at nine mass immunization clinics between the summer of 2021 and December of that year and finalized the study this July, Lysyk wrote, but did not share results with public health units to help them plan for the rollout of the bivalent vaccines this fall.

Lysyk found that contracts for goods and services related to COVID-19 were timely given the urgency of the pandemic, but better co-ordination could have reduced some costs.
About $18.7 million was paid to private companies for underutilized mobile COVID-19 testing, the auditor found.

“Vendors were paid a guaranteed minimum daily payment to cover overhead costs even if a minimum number of COVID-19 tests were not performed,” Lysyk wrote in the report.

One vendor charged its guaranteed minimum daily payment of $8,255 whether zero tests or 250 tests were performed in a day, the report said.

The audit identified 105 instances, representing $800,000, in which vendors got their guaranteed minimum daily payment despite testing no one that day.