The Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s vaccination centres on Tuesday followed another new schedule, the fourth change in nine days.
On Tuesday, there were no separate hours for the first and the second dose. There were no separate queues either and shots were administered on a first-come-first-served basis.
“According to the new schedule, there would be no separate hours or separate queues for first and second doses. There will be a single queue and we will administer vaccines to everyone, irrespective of the dose, on a first-come-first-served basis,” said a KMC doctor.
On Monday, the civic body had reserved the last one hour — from 3pm — for the second dose. Over the past week it had experimented with two other schedules — first it had announced that three days would be reserved for the first and the second dose each and then said two days in a week would be reserved for the second shot and four days for the first.
According to a third system that came into effect on Monday — only to be modified a day later — both doses would be administered daily but in separate time slots.
A fortnight ago, the civic body had decided to reserve more doses for second shot recipients to ensure no one missed out on the jab.
Doctors managing the civic body’s Covid vaccination in various parts of the city said the recipients complained to them about their inconvenience because of a frequent change in schedule.
“There was chaos outside some centres as people got involved in an altercation with our staff. Those who knew that the second dose would be administered after 3pm came later. They got angry when they learnt that even second doses were being administered from the morning,” said a KMC official.
Most of the primary health centres were allotted 200 doses on Tuesday and a majority of the recipients got the first shot.
“The latest decision is prudent because it is inhuman to ask someone who turns up early in the morning to wait till 3pm. Many of the recipients at our centres come from faraway places in neighbouring districts like Howrah and South 24-Parganas. On Monday, we had to make them wait till 3pm for the second dose. It was unfair,” said another doctor.
On Wednesday, most of the 173 vaccination centres of the KMC will administer Covid vaccines post-noon, after routine immunisation of children.