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Amritsar civil hospital without specialised staff for vaccination
he already working staff has been asked to pitch in with vaccinations as well, which has led to the relatively slow pace of the inoculation drive
Amritsar The civil hospital in the historic holy city is struggling to vaccinate its targeted number of persons against Covid-19, with no specialised staff hired to conduct a task that is a national priority today. The already working staff has been asked to pitch in with vaccinations as well, which has led to the relatively slow pace of the inoculation drive. The major burden has fallen on ward nurses, who are already loaded with their routine work.
“The hospital has no post for handling the work of Covid-19 vaccination. We require at least two people, working only on vaccination, to meet our daily target. On Saturday, we vaccinated 762 persons against the assigned target of 1,000,” said Rajesh Sharma, president, Employee Welfare Association, at the hospital.
Another issue plaguing the vaccination drive is nurses working in the mother-child ward are also put on vaccination duty. This a grave risk for the newborns. Sharma added, “If we are given more staff, we can vaccinate almost twice the number of people we’re vaccinating now.”
Before the Covid-19 virus struck, the hospital had been getting people on deputation to tide over staff strength issues.
Assistant civil surgeon Amarjeet Singh said, “We’ll resolve the issue by arranging more staff and meet our daily targets. Even with such challenges, we have vaccinated 54% of the city’s population. On Friday, we conducted 45 mega camps in the city and vaccinated around 45,000 people, which was more than the target given to us.”
