Express News Service
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The function of personal hospitals in Covid vaccination drive got here to the fore on Tuesday when the well being division mentioned its provides could be disrupted. As many as 1,17,796 doses had been administered by 528 authorities and 198 non-public vaccination centres.
Though it was lower than the common variety of doses given final week, the vaccination didn’t come to an entire halt as a result of elevated provide in non-public hospitals. Health Minister Veena George had mentioned that there could be no vaccine for distribution by the general public system in districts reminiscent of Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur and Kozhikode.
However, these districts distributed vaccines within the vary of 5,000 to eight,000 doses. Ernakulam which had solely Covaxin doses in authorities centres topped with 20,115 doses.“Private hospitals that had applied for vaccines have received at least one consignment each of 500, 1,000 and 3,000 doses. So, the supply has become evenly distributed and it helped in preventing crowding. Even clinics have started ordering vaccines after supply constraints were removed,” mentioned Kerala Private Hospital Association (KPHA) treasurer Dr E Okay Ramachandran.
Earlier, solely giant hospitals making bulk orders of above 3,000 doses had been thought-about for provide by producers. It led to large company hospitals to begin unhealthy promotion at the price of small hospitals. Dr Ramachandran mentioned large hospitals used to cost greater than the federal government stipulated charge.
This was efficiently challenged by KPHA in court docket and it led to a brand new provide coverage. As per the brand new coverage, a personal hospital can order as little as 500 doses of Covishield and 160 doses of Covaxin. But it will likely be distributed by the federal government channel. If it’s at the least 6,000 Covishield and a couple of,880 Covaxin doses, the producers will ship them on to hospitals. As many as 289 hospitals had positioned orders for two,01,320 doses by the state channel and 13,95,500 doses for direct provide until July 19. Private hospitals have began receiving vaccines based mostly on the orders for the final three days.
The vaccine coverage mandates that the Central authorities buy 75% of the vaccines produced for distribution to the states at no cost whereas the non-public hospitals can buy the remaining immediately from the producers.
However there have been allegations that the 25% meant for personal hospitals had been cornered by giant hospital chains.Some well being specialists wished the state to kind a consortium of small and medium non-public hospitals to buy vaccines in giant numbers to make sure provide and quicker inoculation. Though the federal government made preliminary discussions on this regard, it was dropped as a result of technical points.
“The consortium should give bulk orders for 75 lakh doses. Bulk orders are always easy to ship faster. The government should also provide subsidies so that vaccines are made available to people at `300-400. The pace of vaccination will not improve without any innovative strategy,” mentioned immunologist and public well being skilled Dr Padmanabha Shenoy.
Indian Medical Association state secretary Dr Gopikumar P mentioned the federal government ought to contemplate the vaccination on a conflict footing to realize the specified degree of herd immunity in opposition to the following wave of Covid.
