Mumbai: BMC to run 10 vaccination centres in 2 shifts from today

Beneficiaries receive their jabs at Nair Hospital. Pics/Suresh Karkera/Ashish Raje

With vaccinations for those above 45 years of age to start from today, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) plans to run 10 centres in two shifts from April 1 onwards. As the number of people turning up for vaccinations has been increasing by the day, private hospitals had been asked to run their centres 24/7, but as that has not been happening, the civic body plans to increase their intake capacity for vaccinations.

As it is not possible for the BMC to run 24-hour services for the drive, it has decided that instead of the single shift from 9 am to 5 pm, it will now have two shifts from 7 am to 2 pm and 2 pm to 9 pm at 10 centres. Sources said the new timings would be implemented in the other centres depending on the turnout over the next couple of days.

However, with the COVID-19 caseload increasing, BMC hospitals are facing huge staff crunch. As more people will be needed to run the vaccination centres, the civic body has allowed hospitals to rope in additional staff to increase the inoculation capacity, manage queues at centres and maintain social distancing.

While the civic body has claimed that it has enough doses to cater to the increasing demand for vaccination, they are expecting an additional 2.25 lakh doses in the coming days. The BMC also aims to increase the number of vaccination centres from the existing 108 to 115 depending on the central government's approvals.

Speaking to mid-day, Additional Municipal Commissioner, Suresh Kakani said, "We have allowed some civic hospitals to run in two shifts so that we can cater to all the incoming beneficiaries. From Thursday onwards we will be vaccinating those above 45 years of age along with health care workers, frontline workers and senior citizens."

Meanwhile, there has been a dip in the daily turnout for vaccinations, which earlier was over 40,000, but now has reduced to about 26,000. On Wednesday, the total turnout was 28,421 beneficiaries, who were vaccinated at various civic and private centres. Meanwhile, a total of 11,52,974 beneficiaries have been inoculated till date, out of which 15,09,69 have received both the doses.

According to available data, five adverse effects cases were reported on Monday from among those who took the Covishield jab, whereas one adverse effect case was reported with regard to Covaxin. While 26,805 vaccine doses of Covishield were given, 1,616 doses of Covaxin were administered. However, the adverse effects cases were minor ones. A total of 111 vaccination centres were operational and 237 units were functioning with a capacity of 23,700 on Wednesday.

The number of senior citizens who turned up for their first dose on Wednesday was 15,220, while 629 took the second dose. A total number of 4,796 people above the age of 45 years with comorbidities took the first dose, while 100 took the second one. The number of health care workers who were administered the first dose was 1,884 and 622 took the second dose. Further, the number of frontline workers who took the first dose was 3,315 and 1,855 took the second dose.