Short on manpower, three-day pulse polio drive loses steam in Zirakpur

Satinder Pal Singh

Zirakpur, June 17

While three-day polio drive to administer drops to children below five years of age began on Sunday, its functioning has been affected due to shortage of nursing students. Sources said nursing colleges refused to send adequate number of students for the drive. The institutes gave a reason that most of the students were not available due to summer vacations.

Lack of manpower had a little affect on door-to-door mop-up rounds of the polio vaccination drive as the Health Department managed it with local volunteers, said sources. It is pertinent to mention that the Health Department ropes in nursing students besides, other volunteers from colleges to make the drive successful. Volunteers, including students get trained by local ward officials of the department.

A section of workers admitted that around 50 per cent less kids could be immunised on the first day of the drive this time. Volunteers covered around 16,018 houses and administered polio drops to 8,189 children.

Though administration kept on maintaining that things went on smoothly, some on-duty workers spilled the beans.

A staff member on condition of anonymity said due to shortage of nursing students they had to face a lot of inconvenience. He said they were able to rope in a few volunteers. He added that the ANMs were well-versed with the population, but the volunteers were clearly searching for kids going from door-to-door. 

An official on condition of anonymity said they had informed the WHO team about the shortage of nursing students, adding that they had also requested them to extend the polio drive in order to cover maximum number of children.

A doctor said the team visited slum and high-risk areas on the first two days of the campaign. He said they were facing problems in residential societies on VIP road and Baltana.

District Immunisation Officer Veena Zarewal agreed that they did not get the required number of nursing students due to summer vacation. She said even if the drive needs to be extended for another two days, the Health Department would do it to ensure that every child below 5 years can be administered polio drops.