At Mumbai’s vaccination centres, long wait tires senior citizens

HT visited 5 centres and found little infrastructure in place to make the waiting period comfortable.

More than 50 days into the nationwide mass immunisation programme, several vaccination centres in the city are struggling to manage crowds and senior citizens are being made to wait for 90 to 120 minutes to get vaccinated.

A senior citizen gets vaccinated against Covid-19 at Maa Hospital in Chembur, Mumbai on Friday. (Vijay Bate / HT)

On Friday, HT visited five medium-sized vaccination centres — Shri Harilal Bhagwati Municipal Hospital in Borivli; Shatabdi Hospital in Kandivli; the jumbo Covid centre in Dahisar; Maa Hospital in Chembur, and Mahim Maternity Home — and found little infrastructure in place to make long waits comfortable for beneficiaries.

Abhay Chaturvedi, 67, a resident of Mira Road, and his wife, Meera, 64, came to the jumbo Covid centre in Dahisar and had to wait in a long queue before they were able to enter the vaccination room. There were two tents at the entrance that offered shade to those waiting, but no sitting arrangements. “There are so many elderly people coming for vaccination. Some have knee and back pain so can’t keep standing long. But there is no chair available at these centres. We couldn’t even find drinking water,” said Chaturvedi.

Crowd management has been a challenge for many centres, especially since glitches in the centralised Co-WIN app has meant those who registered on the app had to wait along with those coming for walk-in appointments.

Jayanti Lal Shah, 94, a resident of Borivli, reached Bhagwati Hospital with an appointment on the app but had to wait for 90 minutes with others before getting vaccinated on Friday. Jayantilal Babubhai Desai, 70, who had also registered on the app, said he had to wait for 85 minutes. He said, “When I registered on the app last week, I was only given the date of appointments. But there was no mention of timing. So, even after registration, if I have to wait for hours, exposing myself to probable infections, then why would people register on the app?”

With Co-WIN app giving appointment dates for the next month, many are trying their luck with walk-in appointments. “I registered on Thursday and was given the date of April 4 for vaccination. But I didn’t want to wait so long so got vaccinated with the registered documents on Friday,” said Uday Desai, 70, who is a Borivli resident.

However, some vaccination centres, like Maa Hospital, do not offer the option of walk-in appointments. When HT visited the hospital, several elderly people were asked to return because they had not registered on the app. Applicants can register on Co-WIN on the app or through the website or via the Arogya Setu app. For many, the process of registering has been difficult.

Laxmi Narayan, 69, who was turned away from Maa Hospital on Friday because she hadn’t registered on Co-WIN, said, “We have been trying to log into Co-WIN but couldn’t generate the OTP. So, we thought of coming directly to the centre. Now, we have been asked to go to Rajawadi for vaccination where the walk-in facility is available,” said Narayan’s daughter Sangeeta.

The long waits at the vaccination centres have raised concerns of contracting the infection while waiting to be vaccinated. Kandivli resident Bakulesh Desai, 34, said, “I have been coming to vaccination centres with my relatives to provide them assistance and the situation is horrible everywhere. So I have decided to not get my 73-year-old father to get vaccinated, as I don’t want him to be exposed to the virus in the crowd.”

When Ujwala Deshmukh, 70, went to the Rosa Gardenia health centre in Thane to get vaccinated on Friday. Her daughter-in-law, Janhvi, said, “My only concern was that the testing centre was way too close to the vaccination centre as they are risking senior citizens by being so close to people who are suspected carriers.”

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) currently has the capacity to inoculate 25,350 people daily and is planning to increase its capacity to 100,000.

“We have got the permission from the Central government to allow another 49 hospitals and nursing homes for vaccination. Along with that, private hospitals can run the vaccination 24x7 in their premises. We will soon also increase the vaccination units which will further ease the crowd,” said Suresh Kakani, additional commissioner, BMC.

State advisor Dr Subhas Shalunke emphasised the need to accord more decision making power to the state government. “If Maharashtra is recording the highest number of Covid-19 cases, then there is need for a more vivid planning which is not feasible in a ‘Centre-controlling’ situation. The state government would be given more leeway which will make things faster,” he said.