Keypoints:
- Government allows the centres to operate for vaccination if they have adequate staff to speed up the immunization process.
- Health official has said that state government wants to speed up the vaccination process to ensure that all eligible people are vaccinated.
On Wednesday, Maharashtra government gave a nod for all the vaccination centres to run for 24 hours provided they have adequate staff in order to speed up the immunization drive.
On Wednesday, during a meeting of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), only private hospitals in Mumbai were given approval to conduct vaccinations 24×7. Several private hospitals from Thursdayplan to keep centres open till 10 pm to weigh the public response.
“We have given an in-principle nod for centres to run for 24 hours if they want. The vaccination momentum has picked up and we were able to immunise more than 2 lakh today. The numbers are expected to rise gradually,” said Dr Pradeep Vyas, state health secretary on Wednesday.
Beginning from this week, Mumbai plans to vaccinate one lakh people every day with 49 nursing homes given permission on Wednesday to become vaccination centres. Apart from the government ones,Mumbai will now have 88 private vaccination centres.Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani said nursing homes with more than 50 beds and an ICU set up to handle adverse reactions are eligible to apply.
Dr. Mangala Gomare, executive health officer, said the plan is to first open private centres till 9-10 pm. “With available resources, centres will work till night and we will see the response. A lot of senior citizens cannot stay up till late night for vaccination so a centre running for 24 hours may not be possible. But if a hospital wants to, we have given them permission to do so,” Gomare said.
At Bombay Hospital, Dr Gautam Bhansali said they plan to see the response before running centres for 24 hours. “If there is a trickle of people at night, we may not open the centre throughout the night,” he said.
