LEWISTON – Some came as early as 4 Saturday morning, even after people were asked not to. The flu clinics weren’t to open until 8.

Some brought lawn chairs, anticipating a long wait. Others carried blankets to ward off the early morning chill.

Scores walked with the help of a cane. Dozens used wheelchairs. A few dragged portable oxygen tanks on wheeled mini-dollies.

Those who seemed most fragile were invited inside the clinic sites to wait for their flu shots, so they wouldn’t have to feel the cold. The rest waited outside in long, sometimes wide lines, shuffling their way a foot or two at a time toward the main entrance to St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center or the city’s Multi-Purpose Center.

Some groused. Couldn’t a better way have been found? Why not simply visit the doctor and get the shot?

Others offered little sympathy. We’re all in the same boat. You’re getting your shot, they pointed out. Stop complaining.

Two days later, on Monday afternoon, the people from St. Mary’s and Central Maine Medical Center who planned and put on Saturday’s two countywide flu clinics were conducting an evaluation of the day. They were asking each other: What worked and what didn’t?

Their goal, said Kayt DeMerchant: “How do we do things better next year” – all the while hoping more flu vaccine next year will make the clinics unnecessary.

DeMerchant is St. Mary’s director of community relations. She also volunteered her time at St. Mary’s clinic on Saturday.

Overall, she said, clinic organizers were pleased. “Things went very, very smoothly,” she said.

Still, she heard complaints – not many – but she knew not everyone would find the clinics to their liking given the large number of people involved.

“The average person was very pleased,” she said. Some were actually impressed after learning that the 50 or so people staffing the St. Mary’s clinic had volunteered their time to help administer the program.

Chuck Gill, a spokesman for CMMC, which hosted a clinic at the Multi-Purpose Center, said he also heard both praise and complaints.

“No one likes to stand in line,” he acknowledged.

While the lines were long early on, by 10 or so Saturday morning much of the rush had eased and wait times became minimal, sometimes nonexistent. While the clinics were expected to run from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., staff at St. Mary’s opened the doors at 6 a.m. because of the lines. Multi-Purpose Center doors opened about 7:30.

The clinics were organized in large part based on expected need. Officials had said earlier that between 6,000 and 9,600 people who met state and federal health guidelines were expected to seek flu shots in Androscoggin County.

The two hospitals each had about 3,000 doses of vaccine, DeMerchant said. The state pledged another 3,000 doses if the vaccine was dispensed through clinics serving people who lived throughout the county.

That was one reason for the clinics, she said: to get the additional doses of vaccine to as many people as possible.

Another: The only way to accommodate that many people quickly was through a clinic format.

If that many people had sought shots from their doctors, it would have overwhelmed the medical practices, she said. Physicians wouldn’t have been able to handle the rush of flu shot patients as well as their regular schedule of sick people.

The fact that only 3,400 people actually turned out to get the vaccine has a few people scratching their heads.

“Some may not have heard about it,” said DeMerchant. “Some may have decided that they didn’t want to brave the crowds.”

Gill added, “Some people were saying other people are sicker than I am; let them have it.”

He and DeMerchant said vaccine left over from Saturday’s clinics will be distributed to doctors’ offices for patients meeting federal and state health guidelines.

Gill said there’s no need for patients to call their doctors. The physicians will notify those patients who qualify for vaccine, he said.