OTTAWA -- Some Ottawa residents who have COVID-19 vaccination appointments booked for early next week will have their appointments rescheduled after an error with Ontario's online booking system caused double-bookings.
In a statement released Friday evening, the city said a data-entry error with Ontario's online booking portal caused a double-booking for appointments.
Some residents who have COVID-19 vaccinations booked through the province's system for the March 23 to 25 period will have those appointments re-booked.
Vaccination appointments at community clinics, mostly at Eva James Memorial Community Centre in Kanata and Ruddy Family YMCA-YWCA in Orleans, were double-booked due to a data-entry error.
In a memo to council Friday night, staff said approximately 3,116 excess appointments were booked at the Eva James Memorial Community Centre and the Ruddy Family YMCA-YWCA. The city notes more than 17,500 appointments booked through the provincial system for Ottawa this week are unaffected.
The Ontario government is rebooking the appointments.
If your appointment is affected, you will receive a call to re-schedule or an email from the Ministry of Health advising you to call the Provincial Vaccine Booking Line at 1-833-943-3900 to reschedule your appointment.
The city of Ottawa is adding a temporary vaccination clinic at the François Dupuis Recreation Centre and is expanding the Nepean Sportsplex clinic to ensure everyone booked gets vaccinated.
The city says if you are not contacted by the province, show up for your appointment as scheduled.
Vaccinations at Ottawa’s four community clinics will proceed as planned.
In a statement to CTV News Ottawa, Ontario's ministry of health said the scheduling issue was an isolated incident.
"Due to a scheduling issue, we are working to reschedule a small number of COVID-19 bookings for Ottawa area residents. This is an isolated incident and we apologize for the inconvenience to those impacted," the statement said. "We are already reaching out to impacted individuals and are working to reschedule their appointments as quickly as possible, within 48 hours of the original booking. Anyone who is not contacted will not require a new appointment."
The ministry did not elaborate on the nature of the error, but said it does not affect "the other 35,000 first and second dose appointments that have already been scheduled in Ottawa using the provincial booking tool."