COVID-19 vaccination in Mumbai: Doctors get jabs to assure others

A health worker gets the COVID-19 vaccine in the Vaccination Centre at Bharatratna Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Municipal General Hospital in Kandivali. Pic/Satej Shinde

Several doctors were administered COVID-19 vaccine in Mumbai on Saturday, with many of them saying that they wanted to dispel fear about the inoculation by volunteering to take the first doses.

While Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials said that the inoculation drive proceeded smoothly on day one, some beneficiaries complained that they received intimation only hours before the drive began.

At the civic-run Sion hospital and medical college, Dean Mohan Joshi was the first beneficiary, followed by 42 others including heads of department and associate professors.

The vaccine is safe, Joshi told PTI, adding that all healthcare workers must take it so that they are protected from the infection as they go about their work.

"It is a historic day in my life," he said.

His colleague Dr Nilkanth Awad, from the respiratory medicine department, said vaccination will help end the pandemic, but social distancing and wearing masks will have to continue alongside for optimum results.

Dr Awad had conducted trials of Bharat Biotech- manufactured Covaxin at the Sion hospital.

At a centre in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), where Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray launched the statewide drive, members of the state''s task force on coronavirus Dr Gautam Bhansali, Dr Hemant Joshi, Dr Harish Shetty and Dr Rahul Pandit were administered vaccine shots.

It is safe to take the vaccine, Dr Bhansali said.

Dietitian Madhura Pandit was the first to get the vaccine at the BKC centre.

Former state health minister Deepak Sawant was the first beneficiary at the Cooper Hospital centre which was also part of the nationwide live launch of the drive by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mumbai municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal told reporters that 3.30 lakh people from the city will be vaccinated in the first and second phases. Some 1.30 lakh frontline health workers are registered in the first phase.

Vaccination drives were underway in 49 countries and there was no need for fear, he said.

"I am not entitled to take the vaccine as I am not a healthcare worker, otherwise I would have been the first to take it," Chahal said.

Vandana Aawle (55), a civic health department employee, said her relatives advised her to take the vaccine in the second phase so that she would be forewarned about any side effects, "but I took part in the first phase as I know people are initially hesitant fearing adverse reactions".

Private hospital employee Laxmi Shirsat said she did feel nervous when she got a call from civic officials that she was to get the dose on Saturday. "But I told myself that we will have to take it sometime or other, so why not today," she said.

Ganesh Parkar, who works as a peon at Dadar''s Sushrusha Hospital, said he was happy that he was the first employee from the hospital to get the jab.

"I did not face any problem. The process was smooth, though it took longer than expected," he told reporters while coming out of the BKC vaccination centre.

But some healthcare workers complained that they were intimated by the BMC that they were to get vaccinated on Saturday only a few hours earlier.

"We didn''t receive any SMS," one of them said.

Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said the SMSes were not received by some beneficiaries due to technical glitches in Co-WIN application.

The head of the BKC vaccination centre Dr Rajesh Dere said the drive proceeded smoothly on the first day.

Some people were shifted to observation rooms after they complained of "issues" but the cause turned out to be "anxiety and claustrophobia", officials said.

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