Covid-19: Mumbai civic body permits 20 private hospitals to vaccinate its staff

Twenty private hospitals across south Mumbai have now been permitted by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to start vaccination centres for coronavirus, to inoculate their healthcare staff. These vaccination centres at the selected private hospitals will not be open for any other walk-in beneficiaries or the general public, as per the decision taken by the civic body. These hospitals will start vaccination centres for their staff either from Tuesday or Wednesday.

BMC is currently vaccinating healthcare workers as part of phase one of the vaccination drive that began on January 16, and frontline workers as part of phase two of the drive, which began on February 4.

Until Saturday, 114,207 beneficiaries have been administered the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine across 23 hospitals and jumbo Covid-19 facilities in the city. Of these 90,034 are healthcare workers, and 24,173 are frontline workers. BMC will start administering the second dose of the vaccine to healthcare workers on Monday, which marks 28 days from the day they started receiving their first dose.

On Sunday, a team of officers from the civic public health department conducted inspections of 20 private hospitals across south Mumbai, to check if they qualify to become vaccination centres for their healthcare staff.

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner in charge of the public health department said, “All 20 private hospitals have qualified. We invited their staff for training sessions on how to administer the vaccine. Five staffers per booth, per hospital, will be trained by BMC. Whosoever comes up, can attend the training. After which, they can start the vaccination centres.”

Two training sessions have been organised, one on Monday afternoon and another on Tuesday morning. Those who can attend Monday’s session will be able to start the vaccination centres at the respective hospitals from Tuesday, and those who attend Tuesday’s training session will start the vaccination centres at their respective hospitals from Wednesday.

Global Hospital, SL Raheja Hospital, Breach Candy Hospital, Kokilaben hospital, Bombay Hospital, Jaslok Hospital, ESIC Hospital, are among the private hospitals permitted after Sunday’s inspection drive. Space, technical manpower and storage capacity for vaccine vials were the main criteria for the qualification of these hospitals.