04 March,2021 06:33 AM IST | Mumbai | Chetna Sadadekar
A vaccination unit at Nair Hospital on Tuesday
After the government of India allowed the municipal corporation to include private hospitals to conduct the vaccination drive, 13 private hospitals are to be added to the list on Thursday where senior citizens and citizens aged 45 and above with comorbid conditions can queue up but not without prior registration. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) wants to ensure that the senior citizens are administered jabs and don't go without them, and hence has increased staff at all the centres to manage the crowd and get arrangements everyone can be catered to, done.
A senior citizen is vaccinated at Nair Hospital on Tuesday. Pics/Ashish Raje
More centres
Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner, said, "We are opening up more vaccination centres to ensure that those who have queued up are given the vaccine shots, but at the same time we also want to appeal to citizens to not panic and crowd the centres and try to register on the portal, and as a last resort, walk-in to the centres. There are enough vaccines available and we will be giving the shots to the targeted group of people."
While the on-spot registrations are available only at five places in the city - BKC Jumbo Centre, NESCO Jumbo Centre, Mulund Jumbo Centre, Dahisar Jumbo Centre and Seven Hills Hospital - at the other places one needs to be registered on the CoWIN portal. However, one can walk-in into any of the government vaccination centers and private hospitals even without prior appointment.
A health official explained, "The portal gives you an appointment but if you don't have it and have just plainly registered, then a senior citizen of Borivli for instance in Andheri, can walk-in at Cooper Hospital and get the jab without any appointment. But the facility of registering on the spot is not available at Cooper as there is no separate counter there."
Following the chaos at the BKC jumbo centre for two days, on the third day the centre vaccinated 2,564 odd beneficiaries that include health and frontline workers along with the senior citizens and people aged 45 and above with co-morbidities, said health officials. Even the Seven Hills Hospital inoculated 2,198 beneficiaries.
Crowds increase
The crowds continued to go to various government vaccination centres even on Wednesday, and they had to work beyond 5.00 pm. While the COWIN portal had some issues, the problem was not like on Monday and Tuesday and the sessions could be conducted from morning onwards.
The number of senior citizens that turned up for the vaccination on Wednesday was 9,941 and people aged 45 and above was 1,078. The total number of people who turned out was 18,566, including the health and frontline workers while the expected number was 13,800 - an overall turnout of 135 per cent. A total number of 2,60,313 beneficiaries have been inoculated so far.
The city did not see many major private hospitals conducting the vaccination sessions in the past but with the permissions for this coming in late on Tuesday night, about 13 private hospitals will conduct the sessions from Thursday. Of the 44 vaccination centers operating last week, only 27 conducted sessions.
The number of health care workers that were administered with first dose on Wednesday was 1,337 and the number of those who took their second shots were 3,727. The number of front line workers vaccinated on Wednesday was 2,483. The adverse effects cases reported were just 5. However these cases were minor effects and they were allowed to go after observation of half an hour.
