Mumbai: Amid the struggle of COVID-19 vaccine shortage, BMC prepares for next phase

Even as around 50 vaccination centres are closed after running out of stock and while the city awaits the next consignment of COVID19 vaccines the BMC has started the planning for the implementation of the next phase starting May 1Meanwhile The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC has decided to increase the number of vaccination centres across the city to accommodate beneficiaries aged above 18 The central government had on Monday announced that every adult will now be eligible for vaccination starting next monthAiming for 100 centres BMCHowever several doubts such as whether or not the next phase will start on May 1 and whether the vaccines will have to be procured directly or will be given by the state remain unclearThe BMC will get clarity once the state government issues a directive but it does not want to wait till then to make the necessary preparations said officialsThe plan is to raise the numbers of vaccination centres including government and civicrun hospitals and central government hospitals to at least 100 from 49 at present Once the procurement of the vaccines is allowed by the state and is available in the open market the government and civicrun hospitals will look at increasing their manpower to vaccinate as many beneficiaries as possibleThe BMC also wants the industrial sectors and big business houses to conduct their own vaccination drives by coordinating with private hospitals It will be pushing for the same so that the majority of people can be vaccinated in a proper manner4 centres in each wardSuresh Kakani additional municipal commissioner said ldquoWe are looking at increasing the number of vaccination centres by at least two each on the east and west side of each of the 24 wards These will be government centresrdquoIn the meantime the city continues to struggle with the shortage of vaccines On Tuesday 49 vaccination centres were nonoperational and out of these 38 were private six were civicrun and five were state government centres The situation was so severe that many centres had to turn away beneficiaries who had come for their second doseHowever Kakani said that the BMC was expecting a consignment of vaccine doses on Tuesday night and if enough doses are made available then the drive should resume smoothly across all the centres again5 cases of side effectsA total of 39522 beneficiaries including senior citizens people aged 45 and above healthcare and frontline workers were inoculated against the novel Coronavirus between the second shift on Monday and the first shift on TuesdayOut of the 39522 beneficiaries 15040 were senior citizens 19716 were aged 45 and above 1266 healthcare workers and 3500 frontline workers About five cases of adverse reactions were reported across the city So far a total of 2043898 beneficiaries have been vaccinated in the cityBhagwati hospital hit by doctorsrsquo flash strikeBhagwati hospital which was recently in news for shifting COVID19 patients to other medical institutions due to shortage of oxygen faced another setback on Tuesday when doctors went on a flash strike on being threatened by a local corporator A local Shiv Sena corporator first questioned the doctors for not admitting her patient But when the doctors said the patient was fine she threatened to get them sacked A doctor said ldquo Her patient was given good care But she threatened us that we would lose our jobs and she wanted us to apologise but we had done nothing wrong Thatrsquos why we went on a flash strikerdquo After a written complaint the matter was resolved and the doctors returned to work Shantaram Kawde medical superintendent of the hospital said there was no strike or any sort of problem at the hospital49No of vaccination centres shut on Tuesday