Hospitals get ready for Covid shots ahead of vaccination drive on Jan 16

With SII dispatching the Covishield vaccine to 13 cities on Tuesday, the countdown to the vaccination day has begun, and hospitals are getting ready to administer the first shots.

IPGME&R and SSKM Hospital -- one of the oldest general hospitals in the country, built by the East India Company in the heart of Kolkata -- is being primed for Covid-19 vaccination on Saturday. Next to the academic building on the campus, a signage, “Covid Vaccination Site”, points to the scene of action – the auditorium building.

Inside, four makeshift sites have been readied, though on the first day, only one will be operational; the government has allowed vaccination of 100 beneficiaries in a session. The 700-seater auditorium has been converted into an observation room, where beneficiaries will wait for 30 minutes after receiving the vaccine shot. The seating areas have been marked for beneficiaries according to the sites. In the first phase, SSKM will be vaccinating more than 8,000 health workers including doctors, nurses, sanitary workers, and medical officers.

With Serum Institute of India (SII) dispatching the Covishield vaccine to 13 cities on Tuesday, the countdown to the vaccination day has begun, and hospitals are getting ready to administer the first shots.

Wednesday was a scene of frenetic activity at most hospitals in Delhi, with many carrying out last-minute changes in the presence of state health officials. But with successful dry runs recently, hospitals seemed confident ahead of the final roll-out.

Apollo has set aside three rooms for vaccination in the coming weeks, with each capable of administering a maximum of 100 shots a day. “The government, however, intends to use only one booth per site, for now. Our process will be completely digital, which will be both safer and quicker,” said Anupam Sibal, group medical director at Apollo Hospitals Group.

In a 148-page document, the health and family welfare ministry has laid down the operational guidelines for the vaccination drive and preparations are largely in line with it. The entire process -- from the list of beneficiaries to issuing an electronic certificate -- will be managed through the Co-WIN app. After a candidate gets the vaccine, a nurse or health worker will click on the ‘yes’ button on the Co-WIN app, and the beneficiary will receive an SMS.

The electronic vaccine intelligence network (eVIN), now converted into Co-WIN, will track the details of potential beneficiaries, such as the place where they are likely to get the vaccine, the issuance of an electronic certificate, and following up for the second dose through detailed text messages and reminders.

Across cities, the hospital scene is largely the same. At the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)-run Cooper Hospital, civic officials and doctors were seen fine-tuning preparations ahead of the vaccination. Given the public interest in this campaign, doctors want to ensure that it is absolutely glitch-free. An additional Wi-Fi router has been installed to ensure that there are no hiccups in the registration process. "We are ready to vaccinate 10 persons at a time in two sessions. All preparations have been made,” said Dr Pinakin Gujjar, the hospital’s dean.

The Covid-19 isolation unit at Cooper Hospital has now been converted into a vaccination centre. Apart from the usual infrastructure, a physician and an anaesthetist will be on duty for observation and a few ICU beds are being kept reserved for emergencies.

"We are fully prepared for the vaccination program. The state government has got the first consignment of vaccine and now distribution will start. We are confident that by January 15, vaccine vials will reach all district centres," Maharashtra health minister, Rajesh Tope, said today. The state had earlier announced 511 centres but on advice from the Centre has now reduced it to 350.

With the entire process being monitored online, technology is in focus. High-end machines and sophisticated gadgets connected to high-speed internet in observation rooms have been put in place at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital and Government Medical College Hospital in Chennai, one of the main vaccination centres in Tamil Nadu.

Keeping social-distancing requirements in mind, ample space has been provided at the centres with proper cold-chain maintenance and biomedical waste management.

At Bengaluru’s Aster CMI Hospital at Hebbal, the staff is seen giving the finishing touches to arrangements. A 40-member team is working tirelessly to manage the entire exercise. The hospital has a list of 1,500 frontline workers who would be administered the vaccine in a span of three days. In the event of any crisis after the jab, a team of doctors including a pulmonologist, a cardiologist, and a general physician will be on standby.

In the first consignment, Karnataka received 648,000 doses in 54 boxes, which have been stored in a cold-chain facility in Bengaluru. The other cold storage, located in Belagavi, is likely to receive 140,000 doses. In total, over 600,000 frontline workers have registered for vaccination in the first phase, which will take place in over 200 centres.

In Gujarat, 287 vaccination centres, most of which are either municipal schools or health centres, are at different stages of preparations. At the Smt Sushilaben M Shah (SMS) Multi Specialty Hospital, three vaccination centres are ready and 15 hospital beds have been put in place for each of the waiting and observation rooms. At a municipal school, converted into a vaccination centre, however, there is apprehension that the waiting rooms may fall short for the number of beneficiaries.

The Gujarat vaccination drive will be flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the 430,000 health workers in the government and private sector; the Delhi drive is likely to be kicked off by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at Lok Nayak Hospital.

The back-end

On the infrastructure side, last-minute checks and beefing-up are on. About 47,000 vaccination sites across Tamil Nadu have a capacity to store 25 million vaccines. The state has readied as many as 51 walk-in coolers and 2,800 secondary cold-storage points.

Tamil Nadu Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said it was being checked if cooling was sufficient in the vaccine boxes as they would have to reach remote areas.

During Phase-I, around 500,000 people, including health workers and frontline workers, will receive the vaccine.

Delhi hospitals have been retrofitted with large freezers that can hold up to a few million doses. They will be assisted by the state government.

An official of the health department said on the condition of anonymity, “We have set up cold-storage points — over 500 — wherein each will be connected to around four centres. The logistics will have to be worked out very carefully.”  

He added that the government plans to add more centres in the coming weeks, with the number likely to go up to 1,000.

A health department official in West Bengal said minor augmentations might be required, but not for the first phase, in which 600,000 health workers would be inoculated.

The BMC is currently prepared to vaccinate 12,000 persons daily at eight hospitals in the first phase and plans are being worked out to ramp this up to 50,000 persons daily at 75 centres based on the availability of doses. Wednesday morning, it received the first batch of 139,000 Covishield doses.

Gujarat’s immunization officer, Nayan Jani, said there were around 2,200 cold-chain points in the state, and 287 vaccination centres had been readied for the first phase.