Hindustan Times (Noida)

Gzb targets 5K jabs a day

Private centres will be leveraged to meet govt’s target of 93K in March, says official

- Peeyush Khandelwal peeyush.khandelwal@htlive.com

GHAZIABAD: Ghaziabad district health department said they will vaccinate 5,000 people a day at government and private centres to meet the month’s target of 93,480 Covid-19 vaccinatio­ns for phase-3 first-time beneficiar­ies.

“We have identified 25 government health care facilities, including district hospitals, community health centres (CHC) and urban primary health centres (UPHC). The two district hospitals at Sanjay Nagar and Women Hospital have been asked to vaccinate 240 beneficiar­ies each-aday, while the CHCS have been asked to cater to 300 each. The UPHC have been asked to vaccinate 200 each while the rest of the government facilities will take up vaccinatio­n of 100 beneficiar­ies each in a day,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer.

Under phase-3 are people over the age of 60 or those with co-morbiditie­s and 45 years old, as per the Uttar Pradesh government’s programme schedule. The other two phases were health care workers and front line workers, which includes police, paramilita­ry personnel and district officials. Phase-3, or last phase, will begin on March 4.

The Uttar Pradesh government had given each district a target for the month. For Ghaziabad, it was around 25% of the total listed beneficiar­ies under phase-3.

Dr Gupta said that, till Wednesday, 16 private hospitals had come forward to buy the vaccine from the government and more were likely to enrol in

the coming days. Overall, 29 of the 33 private hospitals had agreed to participat­e in the vaccinatio­n drive.

As per government directions, private hospitals will buy the vaccine from the health department in multiples of 100 doses at a cost of ₹150 for each dose. They will be allowed to charge ₹250 per dose from beneficiar­ies.

“Two private hospitals are likely to vaccinate 300 beneficiar­ies each daily, while one Vaishali hospital will target 400. The rest will vaccinate 100 each. With this schedule, we will be able to take up vaccinatio­n of about 5000 beneficiar­ies each per day and will be able to achieve the monthly target,” Dr Gupta said.

Officials with the health department said that the government told them to meet the target and not exceed it.

The officials said that the health care workers and the front line workers who will have their second dose due can come to any of the government centres for free of cost vaccinatio­n or can go to private hospitals in case they wish to get paid vaccine.

As per directions by the UP

government, the district hospitals will operate for six days a week while the other government facilities will operate on Monday, Thursday and Friday. The private hospitals are directed to take vaccinatio­n on a minimum of four days in a week.

As per district administra­tion figures, of the 23,754 health care workers scheduled to get their first shot of the Covid-19 vaccinatio­n till February 25, around 75% turned up since January 16. From February 15, the second dose phase began for them. Till February 26, their turnout had been 87% (10421 of 11964).

Of the 18,857 front line workers who were supposed to get their first shot, 10,236 had turned up till February 25.

Their second dose phase is yet to begin.

The phase-3 beneficiar­ies were up to a much better start with all 300 beneficiar­ies getting their first shot on March 1.

 ?? SAKIB ALI /HT ARCHIVE ?? All 300 Phase-3 beneficiar­ies turned up to get their first shot on March 1 in Ghaziabad.
SAKIB ALI /HT ARCHIVE All 300 Phase-3 beneficiar­ies turned up to get their first shot on March 1 in Ghaziabad.

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