Mumbai civic body to vaccinate frontline workers from February first week

Following instructions from the Centre, the BMC will start vaccinating frontline workers from the first week of February, along with healthcare workers (HCWs). This is in line with the Maharashtra government’s decision on Saturday to begin vaccination of frontline workers from February 1

Following instructions from the Centre, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will start vaccinating frontline workers from the first week of February, along with healthcare workers (HCWs). This is in line with the Maharashtra government’s decision on Saturday to begin vaccination of frontline workers from February 1. The state has 580,000 frontline workers, including police personnel and sanitation workers, who have enrolled on the centralised CoWIN app.

(Satish Bate/HT Photo)

District administrations have been directed to increase the number of vaccination centres from 239 on Friday, as per the requirement. The state government has been assured by the Centre of an adequate supply of doses.

To facilitate the entire process, BMC will start more vaccination centres at peripheral hospitals and other Covid-19 jumbo centres to attain its daily target of 10,000 inoculations. In Mumbai, around 200,000 frontline workers have registered on CoWIN.

Initially, BMC had decided to begin the second phase after February 14. Now, BMC will conduct a dry run for the second phase on February 1.

“The central government has instructed us to start inoculating frontline workers along with HCWs for to complete the mass immunisation programme in the city faster,” said Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner, BMC. “We had a meeting on Saturday where the decision to start the second phase from the first week [of February] has been taken.”

In the city, 125,000 HCWs have registered on the CoWIN app. Over the past 10 days of the vaccination drive, which started on January 16, the BMC had set a target to vaccinate 48,791 HCWs, of which 39,690 or 81% HCWs have taken the first jab.

“We have received instructions from the central government to initiate the second phase at the earliest. But as we have a large number, we wanted to finish the first phase before starting with the second phase,” said a senior health officer from BMC.

‘Daily target will be increased to 10K’

To facilitate the immunisation process for both categories, BMC has decided to increase their daily target to 10,000 vaccinations. To meet the new target, BMC will include four peripheral hospitals of the 16 hospitals in the initial phase and two more jumbo centres will be added.

“We have plans to start vaccination centres at Bhabha (Kurla), MW Desai (Malad), Bhagwati (Borivli) and VD Savarkar (Mulund) peripheral hospitals. Initially, we will start two vaccination units at each of these centres, which can be increased further. At present, we have finalised Bhabha hospital,” said Dr Sheela Jagtap, city immunisation officer, BMC.

When the immunisation programme started, the city had 10 vaccination centres, including the state-run JJ hospital. This week, the civic body added two more centres—-SevenHills hospital and NESCO jumbo centre at Goregaon.

Kakani held an inspection at the two facilities to evaluate the infrastructure, following which a decision has been taken to add 13 more vaccination units at the two places. “At present, there are five vaccination units at SevenHills, which will be increased to 15 units by next week. Also, the NESCO jumbo centre, which has two units, will be increased to 5 units. Then later, we will increase it to 10 units,” said Kakani.

The BMC will start two more vaccination centres at the two Covid-19 jumbo centres situated at Dahisar and Mulund. “Jumbo centres have good infrastructure and get a large number of patients. Also, they are more localised, which can attract more beneficiaries,” said Dr Jagtap.

‘Don’t get over dependent on technology’

The technical glitch in the CoWIN app at the beginning of the mass inoculation programme led to the civic body struggling to meet half of its target. As a result, doctors have cautioned the civic body to not be totally reliant on the app, but instead also focus on walk-ins to vaccination centres, which will boost the overall turnout.

“If the app shortlists 500 HCWs and sends out messages, only 50% actually turn up for vaccination. As the pressure on the civic body will only further increase (inoculation FWs and HCWs), they need to be more open and approachable to techniques like walk-ins,” said Dr Deepak Baid, president, Association of Medical Consultants (AMC).

Doctors have also suggested that private hospitals be included in the mass vaccination programme. “To vaccinate 200 million people in the city, only government infrastructure won’t suffice. They need to include private hospitals , which will bring vaccination to the door steps of the public,” he added.