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Andhra CM asks Centre to halt direct vaccine supply to private hospitals
Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Saturday asked the Centre to do away with the policy of allowing private hospitals procure Covid-19 vaccine directly from the manufacturers and taking up vaccination, at the cost of government hospitals
Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Saturday asked the Centre to do away with the policy of allowing private hospitals procure Covid-19 vaccine directly from the manufacturers and taking up vaccination, at the cost of government hospitals.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the CM said many state governments had taken a decision to vaccinate people, including those in the age group of 18-44 years, free of cost. “However due to insufficient availability of vaccine under both channels of supply, only those who are above 45 years of age are being vaccinated in Andhra Pradesh as they are more vulnerable,” he said.
As per the liberalised policy of procurement and pricing of Covid-19 vaccine, private hospitals willing to provide vaccination services could procure vaccine doses directly from the manufacturers, exclusively from the 50% supply earmarked for “other than Government of India” channel.
Jagan said this liberalised policy was sending out wrong signals to the people. Due to the price differential offered to them and also the flexibility available to the private hospitals to fix the price of their vaccines, these hospitals are charging as high as ₹2,000 to ₹2,500 for each dose from the public.
“This makes these doses one of the costliest in the world and inviting criticism from general public. Vaccine is for a public good and ideally it needs to be given free of cost or at least at affordable rates,” Jagan said.
The chief minister said due to lack of enough supply of vaccine to cater to even the 45+ age group completely, there was no possibility of taking up the free vaccination of the 18-44 years for the next few months.
“It appears very unreasonable to allow some private sector hospitals to vaccinate people of all age groups at such exorbitant rates. Not only is it a disadvantage to the poorer sections of the society who cannot afford such high cost, but it also creates a situation of black marketing of the vaccine, which administratively is a Herculean task to control,” he said.
Jagan said though providing various options to the public to get vaccinated in both the government and private hospitals was a good idea, it was possible only if there was a surplus supply and availability of vaccines. “Since in the present situation, where vaccine supply is very limited, providing this option to the private hospitals, where in they charge an exorbitant price, is socially unacceptable and administratively difficult to monitor,” he said.
He appealed to the PM to dispense with the supply of vaccines to private hospitals so that the entire stock was available only to both the central and state governments to take up vaccination of all eligible people.
