140 beneficiaries inoculated in Jalandhar distrct

Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 20

With beneficiaries refusing vaccination in Jalandhar, the health authorities have roped in private hospitals to give a fillip to the drive in the district.

With various vaccination centres closed in Jalandhar on the occasion of Gurpurb on Wednesday, as many as 140 staff members were administered the dose at the Tagore Hospital session site on Wednesday. The drive began with Dr Vijay Mahajan, managing director, Tagore Hospital, getting vaccinated along with his staff.

Civil Surgeon Dr Balwant Singh and the District Immunisation Officer, Dr Rakesh Chopra, visited the vaccination centre at the Tagore Hospital. While the session site at the PIMS became operational yesterday, the district saw closure of two session sites, including the Nakodar Sub-Divisional Hospital and the CHC Basti Gujan, due to limited response.

On Tuesday, around four to five beneficiaries came forward to get vaccinated at the Nakodar Sub-Divisional Hospital. Across all the sites, only doctors were coming forward to get vaccinated as very less paramedical or support staff has been willing to get the dose.

In broadened protocol to ensure more vaccination, it has been directed that if beneficiaries receiving the message don’t turn up, other registered health workers at the session site may also be included in the vaccination process.

With more private hospitals added as the session sites, the vaccination sites for tomorrow include the Civil Hospital, PIMS, Tagore Hospital, SGL Charitable Hospital and Shriman Hospital.

Dr Mahajan said, “We have 600 employees and all of them have been registered with the vaccine database. The staff will be vaccinated in subsequent days. No adverse reaction was reported among any of our employees and the drive went off smoothly.”

Dr Chopra said, “Health workers vaccinated today were from the Tagore Hospital. The process went on smoothly. Due to Gurpurb, the Civil Hospital session site was closed. The PIMS site was also not operational. The Shriman Hospital vaccination site will become operational tomorrow. The Nakodar and Basti Gujan session sites have been closed due to limited response. From tomorrow onwards, more private hospitals will be roped in.”

Dr Chopra said due to technical glitches in the portal, numerous health workers could not be vaccinated.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.