Hundreds stand for hours in cold and rain at Scarborough Civic Centre.
Crowds line up outside the Scarborough Civic Centre Friday for one of Toronto Public Health's H1N1 vaccination clinics.
Staff photo/DAN PEARCE
They were the people who needed the protection of a flu vaccine the most: pregnant women and tiny children, the elderly, people with chronic health problems.So to guard their health, the City of Toronto had hundreds of them stand for uncomfortable hours in the cold and rain.In Albert Campbell Square, Lynn McGarrigle, a widow pushing a walker after a second hip replacement in May, said she arrived a half hour before a vaccine clinic opened in Scarborough Civic Centre at noon to find a queue others said had looked like a child's scribble and moved back and forth like a snake."It was such a maze, you couldn't find the end of the line," McGarrigle said around two hours later.Behind her, Rose Anne Houle, a senior visiting from Sudbury, wondered why no one had thought of putting some tents up. Or of handing out cups of coffee. "This is priority people, people here with chronic problems," she said as the rain started again."My neck, my back, everything hurts already."Michell Watt from Scarborough, 32 weeks pregnant, had her two-year-old daughter in a stroller and her three-year-old nearby. Friends have already had the swine flu, she said, so it was too dangerous for her not to get the vaccine. "I'm in contact with too many kids to not have it."Still, Watt thought the city's health department would have a better system for Friday's clinic. "I didn't think they'd make us stand outside."A single police officer was doing his best to hand out tickets, each with a number and a one-hour time slot when adults and children with them could expect needles from the 40 nurses at tables inside. Everything's calm here, he said.People had joined the line as early as 4:30 a.m. for the noon opening. By 2:30 p.m., some who had been lined up by 8 or 10 a.m. were just getting in.McGarrigle, Houle and Watt all stayed in a line formed for 3 to 4 p.m., not seeing the ticket as any guarantee.Two enterprising men were selling umbrellas for $10 - "Swine flu special!" - then came back with a box of potato chips, and by 2:30 p.m. had added to their mobile store lollipops and Barrack Obama souvenir bags.Dorothy, a senior with health problems who wouldn't give her last name, was holding a ticket for 4 to 5 p.m. The pain in her leg was bothering her but she didn't dare to leave the line."What I think the government should have done is get a gymnasium or somewhere big," she said.Opening her umbrella, Dorothy maintained it was worth it to get the vaccine as soon as she could to ward off swine flu. "I hope I don't get it standing out here," she said.