COVID-19 vaccination drive: 'We are too few for so much work,' say nurses

A health worker gets vaccinated at Bharatratna Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Municipal General Hospital in Kandivli on Day 1 of the drive. Pic/Satej Shinde

Managing routine work with limited manpower, hospitals now have the additional responsibility of running vaccination centres. Although the civic body claims that it is ready for the drive, complains of staff shortage are emerging, especially from among the nurses.

The vaccination centres were short-staffed on the inauguration day itself. In addition, even though the vaccination drive was suspended for the past two days, the BMC is yet to figure out how it would manage its hospital staff and plan working hours.

The issue of staff shortage was noticed even earlier during the pandemic when the civic body had to hire health workers on contract. Appearing not to have learned from the past, the civic body operated 39 vaccination units across nine centres with the available staff itself. It plans to continue with this after CoWIN resumes. While the initial plan was to run the 80 units across nine centres in two shifts at full capacity, the BMC decided to run them at almost half on the inauguration day.

A nurse, who is also in charge of the nursing staff at a municipal peripheral hospital, said, "We were promised extra sets of hands when the vaccination centre was decided to be put up here. But so far, there has been no word on additional manpower. If I put up my nurses here in two shifts, I have less staff for regular hospital duties. Although there was just one shift on Day 1, I was struggling to keep up with the roster for the next day. Only because the drive got cancelled, we could manage our routine work. It's the same with doctors. We hope additional manpower is brought in when the drive resumes."

This is being noticed at major civic hospitals, too. However, hospital authorities claim that there is no need for additional manpower currently. A doctor told mid-day, "We will get extra staff only when all units start functioning. For now, we will manage with whatever staff is available."

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No. of shifts vaccination centres have to function in