Seventy-five-year-old Nagalakshmi* (name changed), who arrived at KC General Hospital, a government facility in Bengaluru on Friday morning, had to wait for more than two hours before she could get the COVID-19 vaccine dose. “Things, however, went smooth. Getting the vaccine shot took only a few seconds and the staff were friendly,” she told TNM. Nagalakshmi availed walk-in registration as she could not get a slot via the Co-WIN 2.0 portal. She is not the only one who had to wait for hours at the hospital to get the vaccine.
In fact, since the second phase of the COVID-19 vaccination drive began on March 1, the response from the public has been so overwhelming that hospital authorities had to expand the timing beyond the Union government prescribed 12 pm to 5 pm window and start as early as 9 am in some hospitals. Even the cap of 200 vaccines per session site is being relaxed by the hospitals to cater to those walking into the government and private hospitals.
Janaki Ramakrishnan, who took her 81-year-old mother to Vikram Hospitals, a private facility, on Miller’s Road on Tuesday, said she had to wait for nearly six hours even after getting a slot online. “At 1.30 pm, the hospital had the spillover from the previous day. It took me five to 15 minutes to complete the registration per person. Besides, the process does not end with registration. At the vaccination centre, the hospital will ask for the photo ID and Aadhaar card.”
This delay also resulted in some altercations between beneficiaries and the staff as many got frustrated by the delay. Janaki, however, said the hospital staff managed the situation with extreme politeness.
Amid these hiccups, the COVID-19 vaccination exercise in Bengaluru for citizens above 60 years of age and those above 45 years of age with comorbidities has reportedly seen improvements since it began. While the waiting time was six hours on March 2, day two of the second phase, at government and private hospitals, the average waiting time has been gradually reducing.
On Friday, for example, around 30 beneficiaries were vaccinated in an hour at the KC General Hospital. As per the procedure, after taking the jab, the beneficiaries had to wait for 30 minutes to check for adverse reactions to the vaccine and were then allowed to return home.
“We saw the information in newspapers and got registered. My son did the registration. We had to just wait for an hour before taking the injection. I was worried that it would be very painful but it was nothing like that. It didn't even feel like a mosquito bite,” 74-year-old Kuppaswamy told TNM.
Some of the beneficiaries recounted their registration process to TNM. They first got a token from the vaccination counter after showing their Co-WIN online registration acknowledgement or giving their identification card and phone number for walk-in registration.
After this, people are made to wait in a waiting area and are serially called in for the vaccine based on their token number. According to a few beneficiaries, people with online registration are given preference over those doing walk-in registrations.
At Apollo Hospitals, a private facility, in Bengaluru’s Seshadripuram, around 280 persons came in till 3 pm on Friday. Among them, around 100 were online registrations. The majority of the beneficiaries said that they could not get a slot online, at least not till April, and so decided on walk-in registrations. The process deployed by the hospital was similar to that of KCG but there were more staff attending to the beneficiaries, making the process smoother for spot registrations.
While many who are not getting slots are choosing to walk in, many are hesitant to walk into hospitals due to fear of overcrowding and possible infection.
When Purvi Shetty was finding a slot for her parents on Co-WIN, she was able to get them registered on the portal with ease, but getting a slot was a cumbersome process. “Finding a centre in my nearby areas has been difficult. I tried multiple hospitals but none has a slot for the entire month of March. There are slots only in April. But, I do not want my parents to wait for that long,” she said.
According to Purvi, some centres in her area are named as the street name. “So, I can’t really get an idea if the place is hygienic and safe for my parents. Out of the 20 centres for my Pincode, I do not recognise 17 of them, as they don’t have a proper name,” she said.
Although she tried changing her Pincode, she still could not find a slot before April. “My father is diabetic and has high blood pressure, so I do not want to wait for that long. It would have been a lot easier if the portal could show us hospitals with proper names and address where slots are available for a given date,” she added.
She also suggested a more localised plan like special booths for election purposes where seniors can come and vote. “Many elder citizens I know, who do not have their children living with them, are struggling to get registered. They are not sure if the hospitals nearby will be empty for them,” she said.
TNM had reported how day one of the second phase experienced technical glitches, with many hospitals (government and private) choosing to start the drive the next day, and some choosing to defer the vaccination by hours.
But since then, the vaccination experience has been improving, with the number of people getting covered increasing on a daily basis. On March 4, a total of 7,351 people (out of 7,800 registered persons) received vaccination in the second phase. According to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials, the coverage that day was 92%, compared to less than 40% coverage achieved in the first few days of the first phase of COVID-19 vaccination for health care workers and frontline workers. The statewide numbers also show an encouraging trend.
|
No. of beneficiaries who got the first dose in second phase in Bengaluru |
|
|
March 1 |
1,063 |
|
March 2 |
3,104 |
|
March 3 |
5,354 |
|
March 4 |
7,351 |
| March 5 | 10787 |
*BBMP
The improvement can be partly attributed to the increase in the number of hospitals empanelled for the vaccination drive. By March 8, additional 100 hospitals will be empanelled, according to BBMP. This will open up more online slots in the coming days.
Speaking to TNM, a senior health official attached to the CV Raman Nagar Hospital in Bengaluru, said that most hospitals in the city are also starting the COVID-19 vaccination drive daily around 9.30 am instead of 12 pm. Government hospitals are also carrying out the vaccination drive on all days of the week instead of alternate days.
“On Friday, 236 beneficiaries had registered with us, and by 4 pm, we were able to vaccinate 150-plus,” he said, adding, “Since the server is still at times slow, we are requesting the people to cooperate with us.”