Disorder, long wait on Day 1 of vaccination drive 2.0 at Bengaluru

At some hospitals, vaccination drive did not kick start even by late afternoon due to glitches

Ranganath Navalgund, former director of Space Applications Center, Indian Space Research Organisation, has been waiting at Aster CMI hospital in Bengaluru since 10 am for a Covid-19 vaccination. Little did he know that after waiting for over two hours he would be turned away as he had not registered himself on the CoWIN app but had walked in for the jab.
 

“I tried registering on the CoWIN app but I could not select the venue where I wanted to get the vaccination so I chose to walk in,” said a visibly tired sexagenerian. However, once the BBMP officials arrived with the vaccine shots at noon, he was informed that they are not allowing walk-in vaccinations for the first week to avoid overcrowding.
 

The vaccination process which was to begin at 12 pm in the Silicon Valley of India could not be rolled out before 2 pm because the platform had crashed. There was chaos at Aster CMI with several people who had already registered seen leaving. “I will call the hospital at around 3.30 pm to check if it has begun,” said Kiran Chornoor, an IT professional.
 

Siddharth Hegde, a software engineer who had brought his parents for vaccination has also been waiting for over an hour now. “I had taken a half day leave to get my parents vaccinated. I do not know if I will be able to get back to work,” he said.
 

“Why did the government not fix the platform when the drive for healthcare officials began? What will happen when they go to a massive population?,” asks Kochu Shankar, a retired MNC employee, who too has been waiting with others for over 2 hours for the vaccination along with over 50 other people. The hospital was seen offering refreshments to these people.
 

Aster CMI has set up four vaccination rooms and two observation rooms and the hospital has the capacity to vaccinate up to 200 people each day. The hospital is following a token system to streamline the process. “Every person who enters the hospital will be given a unique identity number and we will monitor everyone through this on our hospital platform. The people will also be sent vaccination reminders on their phones via this platform,” said  Swati Rajagopal, Consultant, Infectious Diseases, Aster CMI Hospital.
 

There was a delay at Manipal Hospital too where the vaccines had not reached within the designated time frame of 12 pm. The hospital officials also faced technical glitches here with around 60 people seen at the venue for the vaccination.
 

“Considering the magnitude of the vaccination drive, I am not surprised at the glitches. The pace will pick up in subsequent days,” said H Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman of Manipal Hospitals.
 

Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute has identified a block at the campus which would serve as the vaccination site but since the CoWIN website had crashed, there were no people coming in for the vaccination.
 

Overall the state health department has shortlisted 18 private hospitals and five government hospitals for administering the Covid-19 vaccine to senior citizens in Karnataka.
 

At hospitals such as Vikram Hospital, the vaccination drive did not kick start even by late afternoon. “The BBMP officials have been trying very hard to restore the app. We are providing lunch to the people who have come in for the vaccination,” said Somesh Mittal, MD & CEO of Vikram Hospital.
 

“For any large vaccination process like this there would be some glitches. From next Monday people can also get on the spot registrations for vaccination,” said a BBMP employee on condition of anonymity.