Vaccine on wheels: Requests flow in from retirement homes

The Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) “Vaccination on Wheels” service aims to vaccinate residents of retirement homes, and the initiative kicked off recently at the Niwara home, in Sadashiv peth

The Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) “Vaccination on Wheels” service aims to vaccinate residents of retirement homes, and the initiative kicked off recently at the Niwara home, in Sadashiv peth.

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The civic body is now receiving many applications from other retirement homes for the Vaccination on Wheels Covid-19 service.

Retirement homes like Pitashree in Kondhwa, Matoshree near Rajaram Bridge and Janaseva Foundation in Khadakwasla have requested for the service.

On Saturday, PMC additional municipal commissioner Rubal Agarwal tweeted: “For decades *Niwara, is the home for senior citizens* in the heart of Pune city - 180 senior citizens were vaccinated at their doorstep through PMC’s initiative Vaccination on wheels”.

Agarwal said, “We started this initiative from Niwara and we plan to extend it to others based on the availability of the vaccines.”

As of Saturday, Pune city had vaccinated 34% or 1,29,902 of its senior-citizen population with the second dose, while 72%, or 2,74,601 have got the first dose.

Ravindra Marathe, a trustee at Niwara, said, “We are grateful to the PMC that they could ease the vaccination process for our members. We have 120 residents and we had to take 20 each day using a bus to the centre.

“However, after that, it was very difficult for us to get the second dose and so we requested the PMC to arrange for a special provision. Over 180 of our residents and staff got the second dose. We have 120 senior citizens and 60 employees,” he added.

Marathe added that not all could get the vaccine due to the requirement of the Aadhar card.

He said, “Usually when these senior citizens come to us they do not have any identity cards so we prepare an Aadhaar card based on the address of our home. However, since the past one year, due to the pandemic, we avoided going out. In the past one year six more residents joined the home, but they could not get their Aadhaar cards. Due to this they have not been vaccinated.”

Vaccine on wheels

To formally request the service, forward an application to the PMC civic body at vaccination.campus@gmail.com.