Childhood immunisation appointments in Cape Town did not always determine the real order of service. In a qualitative study published in 2023, one caregiver described arriving at 10:45 for an 11 a.m. appointment and finding that clinic cards had not yet been collected from parents booked for 8 a.m.
Another participant said caregivers could sit for the whole day without receiving anything. Even after handing in a child’s card, parents waited beyond the appointed hour. Staff shortages sometimes resulted in children being sent home without vaccination. For caregivers who needed to reach work, a long queue could therefore eliminate the opportunity to vaccinate altogether.
An appointment system is meant to distribute demand across time, but a printed schedule does not become a working sequence when reception and clinical capacity lag behind it. The report that 8 a.m. appointments were still pending at eleven turns “delay” into something measurable: three hours of booked patients remained ahead.