The Calcutta Municipal Corporation has sought the help of private hospitals to ramp up vaccination in the city and offered properties belonging to it or the government for the private units to organise off-site jab drives.

The issues were discussed during a meeting with senior officials of private hospitals at the civic headquarters on Thursday.

The hospitals were asked to place more orders for vaccines than what they are doing now so more people can be brought under the vaccination net.

The state government will help source vaccines for private hospitals so that they do not have to slow down their vaccination pace because of supply issues.

Firhad Hakim, the chairperson of the board of administrators of the CMC, was present in the meeting along with officials of the civic body and the state health department.

“CMC and health department officials said private hospitals should place more demands for vaccines,” said Pradip Tondon, chief executive officer, Belle Vue Clinic.

“The state government will place a bulk order with the manufacturers for all private hospitals. If the manufacturers get a bulk order, it will be easier for them to supply. The individual hospitals will pay for the number of doses they sought.”

Sudipta Mitra, the chief executive officer of Peerless Hospital, said the civic body offered to arrange places if the hospitals were not finding space for off-site camps.

“They said the CMC and the state government would offer their nearest property if that is possible. They wanted private hospitals to be involved in outreach programmes and try every possible means to increase vaccination,” said Mitra.

Peerless is vaccinating about 300 people daily, he said.

Officials of private hospitals said that to vaccinate more people they might have to open more off-site vaccination facilities.

“We are vaccinating between 1,500 and 2,000 people every day, counting both off-site and hospital vaccination. But my observation is that the number of people taking the jabs at the hospital does not go beyond a level. So, we will try to increase off-site vaccination sites,” said R. Venkatesh, the regional director of Narayana Health, the owner of Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences (RTIICS).

“People usually feel comfortable taking the vaccine in known spaces like their office or housing complex,” he said.

AMRI Hospitals is vaccinating between 7,000 and 8,000 people a day at its three hospitals.

“We had targeted vaccinating about 10,000 people a day but shortage of doses held us back. The state government’s offer to source the vaccines in bulk will help us,” said Rupak Barua, the group CEO of AMRI Hospitals.

Bengal had touched the mark of vaccinating 4 lakh people each day in March but the numbers have since dropped to between 1.5 and 2.5 lakh.

A health department official said the drop was primarily because of the shortage of doses.

Public health specialists and other doctors have repeatedly said one way to go back to the pre-Covid way of life is vaccinating the entire population. The faster people are vaccinated, the less the chance of the infection spreading.

The CMC’s Covid vaccination centres are inoculation close to 10,000 people a day.

A senior CMC official said they had the capacity to vaccinate up to 50,000 people a day.

The Centre had announced that from May 21 it would buy 75 per cent of doses manufactured and distribute them among the states.

The remaining 25 per cent must be purchased by private hospitals.

But many smaller private hospitals have found it difficult to purchase vaccines directly from the manufacturers. It may help them if the state procures the doses for them, said officials of private hospitals.