Nagpur: Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) on Thursday extended vaccination timings till 10pm at all inoculation centres, added two new ones, and took a slew of measures to prevent crowding and inconvenience to beneficiaries.
TOI has been highlighting the issues faced by citizens during vaccination. The measures are likely to expedite the otherwise slow processes seen in the last few days at NMC centres.
Municipal commissioner Radhakrishnan B told TOI that three different queues will be in place at the centres and vaccination would be done in two shifts now. “Operational issues may pose challenges at some places but orders have been given to extend the timings. Two more centres are planned to start from Friday,” he said.
One queue would be exclusively for healthcare workers (HCWs) and frontline workers (FLWs), whose second dose is due, the other will be for registered age-appropriate group and third for walk ins. NMC has readied two vaccination centres — Mahdibagh UPHC and Railway Hospital at DRM’s office on Kingsway.
NMC chief medical officer Dr Sanjay Chilkar said the two new centres would reflect in the Co-Win 2.0 app and slots up to 10pm must also reflect in a day or two.
The civic body also added three more private hospitals taking the total to 29.
Additional municipal commissioner Ram Joshi said paid vaccination centres at private hospitals can function 24×7. “We are encouraging them to run vaccination without any time restriction. But they are facing staff issues due to different workload,” he said.
Dr Chilkar said vaccination would go up to 10pm at NMC’s centre. “It will depend on other centres how they manage and by when they are able to start,” he said.
Citing the latest measures, Radhakrishnan ruled out restarting free of cost vaccination at private hospitals for HCWs and FLWs.
Private hospitals, which were administering vaccine to HCWs and FLWs, were perplexed at NMC move to stop the drive at their centres. On Thursday, civic officials didn’t issue any order but called up the hospital administrations and informed that second doses won’t be given to them.
Hospitals called the abrupt discontinuation as backtracking by the government and civic administration. They said ultimately the government wants HCWs and FLWs to pay.
Many of the second dose beneficiaries are from the same hospitals which started paid vaccination for age-appropriate groups. Doctors said they were clueless if they should send their HCWs and FLWs to government centres, which consumes whole day, or ask them to stay back for catering to senior citizens.
The minicipal commissioner said HCWs and FLWs can come to government centres. “We had sent a proposal for starting paid vaccination at those hospitals which were chosen for vaccination of HCWs and FLWs,” he said.
Earlier, Vidarbha Hospitals Association (VHA) met Radhakrishnan and divisional commissioner Sanjeev Kumar. VHA president Dr Ashok Arbat and convener Dr Anup Marar told them that many private hospitals are ready to function either as free vaccination centres under NMC or paid centres so that the beneficiaries can spread over and there is at least one vaccination centre in a one km radius.
What has changed
Vaccination timing in two shifts — from 8am to 3pm and 3pm to 10pm at all centres. Not all may do it immediately but gradually will follow it
Three queues at all government centres. One for HCWs/FLWs, second for registered age-appropriate group and third for walk-ins
Data entry operator with laptops to man the counters for different queues
Two new centres at Mahdibagh UPHC and Railway Hospital at DRM’s office. Like to start by 12noon on Friday
Three more paid private hospitals
NMC sends proposal to restart vaccination at 10 private hospitals which were stopped on Monday
Private ones asked to run vaccination drive 24×7
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