The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has received many requests from families to vaccinate bedridden people at home, but the civic body has not been able to launch the service yet.
Hopes for bedside vaccination of bedridden persons rose after Firhad Hakim, the chairperson of the civic body’s board of administrators, announced on July 31 that the KMC would send vaccinators to homes of bedridden people.
Hakim had said the service would be offered only to bedridden persons since they came in contact with caregivers regularly and might contract the coronavirus.
A doctor of the KMC said that on an average, four to five families had made enquiries on the issue in each of the 144 wards since August.
Civic officials at ward or borough levels have told each of the families that they were yet to receive any guidelines on vaccinating the bedridden at home.
A resident of Deshapriya Park had visited three KMC offices to enlist his 93-year-old father-in-law’s name for the service.
“We first went to Basanti Devi College, where the KMC runs a Covid vaccination centre. The officials there directed me to a ward officer. From there I was told to visit the borough office. In each of these places I was told no order had arrived from the headquarters or the officials there were not aware of any such service,” said the man.
A senior official of the KMC said the state health department, which supplies vaccines to the civic body, had opposed the door-to-door vaccination plan.
“We cannot send vaccinators to a person’s home unless we receive permission from the state health department. The department is not agreeing to such a plan,” said the official.
Ajay Chakraborty, the state’s director of health services, said the department had no plans to allow vaccination at home for now.
“Managing adverse events following immunisation is very difficult at home. The authority who is administering the vaccine has to take responsibility and post a doctor at the recipient’s home for 30 minutes after vaccination. Are we in a position to do that? The KMC has to keep a doctor at each of these homes. If any adverse events happen, the onus will be on us,” Chakraborty said.
In Mumbai, the civic body is going door-to-door to vaccinate bedridden people. Mangala Gomare, who heads the health department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, said the BMC had vaccinated 2,500 people at home.
“We have formed several teams to visit homes and vaccinate the bedridden,” she said over the phone on Tuesday.