Ghaziabad health dept ropes in 20 more govt health-care centres for Covid vaccination

Ghaziabad: Facing an uphill task to achieve the target of inoculating over 93,000 beneficiaries against Covid-19 in March, the district health department on Friday increased the number of government vaccination centres from 25 to 45 in the district

Ghaziabad: Facing an uphill task to achieve the target of inoculating over 93,000 beneficiaries against Covid-19 in March, the district health department on Friday increased the number of government vaccination centres from 25 to 45 in the district. Officials said that a total of about 10,900 beneficiaries will be vaccinated daily at the 45 government health-care centres.

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Ghaziabad at present is engaged in vaccination of senior citizens and people aged over 45 years having co-morbidities. Against the target of 93,480 for the current month, vaccination of only 20,887 people was completed in the district till March 11 with coverage of about 22.34%, the officials said.

“We have added 20 more government health-care centres in order to increase our vaccination coverage. All the 45 government centres now will take up anything from 200 to 400 beneficiaries a day, and have been given a combined daily target of vaccinating 10,900 people. Besides, we also have 31 private hospitals engaged in paid vaccination. So, we intend to achieve our monthly target,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer.

He said that instructions were also received from the state officials to increase vaccination coverage.

“The state health department officials have issued directions that the districts having population of more than 25 lakh should vaccinate more than 5,000 beneficiaries per day, while those with population below 25 lakh should take up vaccination of 3,000,” Gupta said.

According to the officials, the district has been able to vaccinate an average of about 1,900 beneficiaries per day during the first 11 days of this month.

Meanwhile, the district health department has also sent names of four more private hospitals to the state government and sought permission for them for start of vaccination. “The permission is yet to be received. Further, we may also open up our women hospital for six days a week in case vaccination process lags behind,” Gupta said.

As per the directions of the state government, all the government health-care facilities engaged in Covid-19 vaccination should open three days a week on Monday, Friday and Saturday, while the district hospitals should operate six days a week for vaccination. The private hospitals were directed to operate for a minimum of four days in a week.

Of the 45 government facilities, only the Sanjay Nagar Combined District Hospital is open six days for taking up vaccination.

According to the state control room figures, the number of Covid-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh has witnessed a minor increase since March 4.

“The vaccination must be expedited considering the rise in Covid-19 cases. For this, they (the health department) must rope in more of private sector health-care facilities and even clinics which have proper infrastructure to handle emergencies. Otherwise, vaccination process will lag behind. Further, the matter will get complicated if more cases arrive and large portion of population remains devoid of vaccination,” said Dr Ashish Agarwal, president of Indian Medical Association – Ghaziabad.