Second dose certificates not updated, complain citizens; hospitals unable to backdate

As malls, trains, air travel and even offices have linked entry to fully vaccinated people, citizens who had earlier not accessed the second dose certificates are now stumbling upon such issues

A 56-year-old woman from Borivli had taken her second shot of the Covid-19 vaccine at the state-run Sir JJ Hospital in April. When she tried to access the full vaccination certificate last week, while entering a mall, she realised that the Co-Win portal had no update on her second dose. She got in touch with the hospital where the doctors updated her certificate, but could not backdate it. The date of her second dose now shows as November 8, which is the date when she got her vaccination certificate updated.

The civic body had found that nearly four lakh people from the city have missed their second dose of the vaccination. Many citizens who had earlier not accessed the second dose certificates are now stumbling upon such issues and have approached the hospitals. (HT PHOTO)

The civic body had found that nearly four lakh people from the city have missed their second dose of the vaccination. While some of them could have delayed the doses due to travel plans or other work-related issues, some may have taken the second dose outside Mumbai or other parts of the country. A section of people like the Borivli resident adds up to the statistics of unvaccinated people, due to delay or manual errors in data entry.

As malls, trains, air travel and even offices have linked entry to fully vaccinated people, citizens who had earlier not accessed the certificates are now stumbling upon such issues.

“In the initial phase of the vaccination drive, our staff was manually entering data in the portal,” said Dr Lalit Sankhe, nodal officer of the Sir JJ Hospital vaccination centre. “We were vaccinating nearly 2,000 people in a day and all of the data had to be entered in the portal at the end of the day. Because of the high workload, updates of some beneficiaries may have been missed out,” he said.

In another case, a 51-year-old Churchgate resident faced a similar issue. She had taken her second dose at the state-run Cama Hospital way back in May, but realised that her certificate was not updated when she was making travel plans. Her certificate too could not be backdated.

“We are getting a few such cases. We promptly verify the documents of the beneficiaries, cross-check with our records and give them an updated certificate,” said Dr Tushar Palve, medical superintendent of Cama Hospital. “Verification is important because we have had a few cases wherein people turned up at the hospital claiming to have got vaccinated, but there were no records about them. We believe that these people are among those who are hesitant to take the jabs but wanted a certificate because a lot of things are now linked with vaccination,” he said.

Mumbai’s immunisation officer Dr Sheela Jagtap said that the 24 war rooms in the city have been tasked with reaching out to every person who has missed out on the second dose and updating the data.