Noida: District hospital begins token system to manage crowd at its vaccination booth

To reduce crowding at its Covid-19 vaccination centre, the Gautam Budh Nagar district hospital in Sector 30 introduced a coloured token system from Monday

To reduce crowding at its Covid-19 vaccination centre, the Gautam Budh Nagar district hospital in Sector 30 introduced a coloured token system from Monday.

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Those who showed their confirmed slots booked through the Co-WIN portal were handed a blue coloured token at the entrance of the hospital that specified the date and time of their vaccination, said Dr Sushma Chandra, the hospital’s chief medical superintendent (CMS). “Those with these tokens will be vaccinated before the others in their allotted time slot.”

The colour of these tokens will be changed every day to avoid anyone misusing it, she added.

Dr Chandra said they vaccinate almost 3,000 people at the hospital every day. “Most of them come without a confirmed slot and that creates a major problem for those who had booked their slots. To avoid a chaos, we’ve decided to introduce this system,” she said.

On Monday, the vaccination centre seemed relatively well managed.

Subhendu Mishra from Sector 76 said this was his second attempt at getting his vaccination. “Before this, I had booked a slot for last Wednesday. But there was a heavy rush at the hospital and I returned without getting the vaccine shot. Today, I got it done within 15 minutes,” he said.

Reena Dutt, a resident in Sector 61 who had received a token, said that she got her jab quickly too. “It was a good experience as the vaccination staff were administering the vaccine doses without any hurry,” she said.

Hailing the new system, GB Nagar district magistrate, Suhas LY, said that the system could be introduced in other hospitals also.

“At present, other centres do not see much crowd due to the limited stock of vaccines. But if such a situation occurs, this system can be introduced for better crowd management,” he said.

According to the Co-WIN portal, till Monday, over 1.5 million people had been administered their doses in the district, of which 1.1 million had got their first dose. On Monday, 10,137 doses were administered at 41 government and 23 private vaccination centres.