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Pune vax centres see less beneficiaries, non-Covid programmes hit by lack of staff
Pune Municipal Corporation’s non-Covid programmes suffer as staff is dedicated for vaccination, which is not getting good response from beneficiaries
Pune: Post Diwali, the vaccine demands have further gone down as people are not turning out at vaccination centres. Despite the administration allocating manpower and infrastructure for inoculation, the demand from beneficiaries has gone down due to reasons like people going out of town for the festival celebration, decrease in need for vaccine as the number of cases drop and those who have taken the first dose do not seem to be enthusiast to get the second dose.
However, this has left the civic body’s health programmes in a catch-22 situation as the staff is dedicated for only one job, vaccination, which is not getting much of a response. A senior doctor from PMC health department said, “The other national programmes have been stuck as the staff has been diverted towards the vaccination centres. Since the beginning of November, the demand for vaccines has gone down and fully staffed centres are seen empty the entire day. Keeping these centres for half a day, first or second half, will allow other programmes to run parallelly. But, now non-covid work is pending.”
As of Saturday, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has administered 5,195,980 of which 3,221,319 have got the first dose and 1,974,661 have got the second dose. Earlier, PMC had announced that the entire eligible population in Pune city had got the first dose which means that 1,246,658 people have yet to get their second dose. As per the PMC’s earlier claims, 100% of the city’s eligible population has got their first dose and now only second dose beneficiaries are pending to get the vaccine.
Since November, despite the steady flow of vaccines and fully manned vaccination centres, the response from beneficiaries has been poor. However, due to the current guidelines in place, PMC has to keep all its centres manned for the entire day to ensure no beneficiary is forced to leave due to no vaccine or staff.
The doctor said that insufficient staff is seen at maternity homes even as admissions have gone back to pre-Covid times.
Dr Ashish Bharti, PMC chief health officer, said, “As of now, we are working as per the guidelines wherein we are required to man the vaccination centres. We have already restarted Dalvi Hospital, Bopodi hospital and Laigude hospital. Despite this, we have asked our staff to attend to the nearest OPDs in case there is no rush at the vaccination centre.”
