Covid vaccination in Mumbai: BMC to allow walk-in entry of healthcare workers
This, BMC officials said, will increase the turnout from the nearly 50% since two days, and will also expedite the process of vaccinating health workers.
In order to increase its turnout for Covid-19 inoculation, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has now allowed walk-in vaccination for health workers registered in its list of 130,000 beneficiaries. This means, if any health worker does not have a slot allotted by the BMC on a particular day, but he reaches the centre for vaccination, the civic body will inoculate him or her based on the fact that he or she is registered in the beneficiary list prepared by the civic body for the first phase.
This, BMC officials said, will increase the turnout from the nearly 50% since two days, and will also expedite the process of vaccinating health workers. On Wednesday, the third day of BMC’s drive, 1,728 health workers were vaccinated — 52% of the expected 3,300. A total of 5,251 health workers have been vaccinated so far in Mumbai. Further, on Wednesday, seven cases of minor adverse events following immunisation (AEFI), involving giddiness ,were reported. All seven were kept under observation for 30 minutes and later discharged.
According to the BMC’s data, of the 10 vaccination centres, three vaccinated more than 200 citizens each — KEM Hospital (362), Bhabha Hospital, Bandra (306) and Rajawadi Hospital (262).
On Saturday, the first day of the drive in Mumbai, 1,926 health workers were vaccinated.
A total of 200 staffers, including 80 vaccinators, were working on Saturday. After this, vaccination was suspended for two days on Sunday and Monday owing to “technical glitches” in the Cowin application.
However, starting Tuesday, the BMC restarted its drive. On Tuesday, 1,597 health workers were vaccinated, of the 3,200 shortlisted to turn up after the drive was put on. Three of the 1,597 vaccinated had reported giddiness (AEFI) following their shots, and were kept under observation for 30 minutes. None of these beneficiaries had to be hospitalised, said BMC.
According to BMC officials, from Wednesday, they have now started vaccinating health care workers on a walk-in basis. Dr Pratima Patil, chief medical officer at the civic-run Shatabdi Hospital in Kandivli, said, “We are vaccinating health workers on a walk-in basis. The criterion is that they should be among those who are identified as health workers by the BMC for vaccination in the first phase.”
Dr Pradeep Jadhav, medical superintendent, Bandra Bhabha Hospital, said, “We are giving appointments to the identified health workers, but if any health workers whose name reflects in our beneficiary database visits any centre without an appointment, we are vaccinating them. This simply means we are vaccinating even those health workers who are not on the scheduled list, but are present in our database.”
There are nine vaccination centres in Mumbai where Covishield vaccine is administered. This includes include four major hospitals — KEM Hospital, BYL Nair Hospital, Cooper Hospital and Sion Hospital followed by four peripheral hospitals — Bhabha Hospital in Bandra, VN Desai Hospital in Santacruz, Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar and Bharat Ratna Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Hospital in Kandivali; and the Covid-19 facility at Bandra-Kurla Complex. Additionally, one more vaccination centre at J J Hospital was added last week where Covaxin is administered.
On how the data of those who visit for vaccination without appointment is handled, Dr Vidya Thakur, medical superintendent, Rajawadi Hospital, said, “We upload all the data of vaccine beneficiaries in the Cowin application of the Central government post vaccination. Also, we have not stopped giving appointments for vaccination. We are also sending messages using the Cowin application.”
According to BMC officials, the Cowin application used for vaccination was working slowly on Wednesday but was delivering messages on Wednesday, unlike Friday when not all were getting messages. The turnout on Wednesday, which was the third day of vaccination was also better than the first two days due to this, said BMC officials.
Meanwhile, the BMC is aiming to vaccinate around 4,000 health workers on four days of a week. This includes Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. The BMC has maintained it has the capacity to store vaccines for a population of around 10 million people, and can expand its vaccination capacity to 50,000 daily, and this can go up to 100,000 when private hospitals are involved.