This story is from January 21, 2021

West Bengal: ‘Rest day’ becomes prep day to get vax infrastructure running

Wednesday might have been a ‘rest day’ for the Covid vaccination drive at Bengal’s state-run hospitals, but it was not a day of rest. From scaling up the number of vaccination sites at hospitals to calling up Thursday’s intended recipients, the state administration utilised this mid-week break to work on back-end infrastructure so that the mass inoculation drive got going without a glitch when it resumed.
West Bengal: ‘Rest day’ becomes prep day to get vax infrastructure running
Representative image
KOLKATA: Wednesday might have been a ‘rest day’ for the Covid vaccination drive at Bengal’s state-run hospitals, but it was not a day of rest. From scaling up the number of vaccination sites at hospitals to calling up Thursday’s intended recipients, the state administration utilised this mid-week break to work on back-end infrastructure so that the mass inoculation drive got going without a glitch when it resumed.
“The one-day break didn’t actually mean a day off for us,” said a senior official of SSKM Hospital.
“We used the day to upload the first two days’ offline data on the Co-WIN platform. And then, once we received the list of 200 intended recipients for Thursday, we called them up to confirm. So far, 90 out of 200 recipients have confirmed participation.”
From Tuesday, the vaccination drive went completely digital, from the randomised selection of recipients to sending text messages. A few hospitals are still calling up recipients to minimise Co-WIN glitches. A lot of effort also went in laying the groundwork for a possible increase in the number of vaccination sites from Friday. “Till now, we have been vaccinating people from one site in our hospital. From Friday, there will be three booths, which would triple the number of recipients,” said the official.
Covid vaccination, however, continued at 31 centres in the districts. “At these centres, 2,439 (78%) healthcare workers were vaccinated. The performance improved because the portal issue was partly resolved, though issues of frequent shutdown and slow connectivity persist,” said Ajay Chakraborty, the director of health services, Bengal.
There is another change in the offing from Thursday: private hospitals in Kolkata will start vaccinating health workers other than their own employees. All recipients have been selected by Co-WIN but hospitals are still calling up their own employees to confirm participation.
The Co-WIN glitches, however, remain. Some health workers complained that they had received two messages, asking them to report at two different venues. “Since the number of sites is still low per hospital, calling recipients individually is still possible. But once they go up, it will be difficult,” said a health department official.

At Kolkata Medical College and Hospital, officials were preparing hard copies of the list of beneficiaries for Thursday even as they allotted manpower and sorted out connectivity issues. “Till Thursday, we will continue to vaccinate healthcare workers from the current site. From Friday, we will have an extra one to increase the number of recipients,” said Indranil Biswas, medical superintendent and vice-principal.
Wednesday’s break didn’t mean a day off for vaccinators and other coordinators, either. “I was back at the hospital’s PP unit for a routine immunization programme, giving vaccine shots to young kids and infants, which has been my usual job for the past several years. From Thursday, I will be back at the Covid vaccination site,” said Moumita Mondal, a public health nurse who’s a vaccinator at a government hospital.
To allow hospitals to plan, the state government has made it clear that “Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays” shall be preferable vaccination days. The session sites in the districts must be “created” by noon the previous day. “This week however, most hospitals will conduct vaccination on Thursday, as Saturday is a state holiday, being Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s birth anniversary,” said a health department official. Urban primary health care centres, however, will operate on Saturday, officials said.
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