Over 1,000 people, mostly senior citizens, who had queued up from around Thursday midnight to get the second dose of Covid-19 vaccine at a primary health centre in Hooghly’s Goghat, lost their cool on Friday afternoon when they were told that only 400 persons could be given jabs.

The vaccine seekers at Kamarpukur primary health centre said the elderly should not be subjected to such an ordeal and like postal ballots, they should be given jabs on the doorstep.

Sources said a lot of people had been given the second dose after 10pm on Friday, but as the queue continued to become longer, officials at the health centre said a maximum of 400 jabs could be given a day. “By then, hundreds of senior citizens had stood in the queue for 12 hours. They burst into anger and accosted the health officials,” said a source.

Tutul Sarkar, a 65-year-old farmer from Goghat, was among those who stood in the queue.

“It was very unethical. The hospital authorities had not informed us earlier that they could only vaccinate just 400 people. I had come here before midnight last night and it was only at 12.30pm today that we were told there was a scarcity of vaccines. During the polls, the Election Commission went to collect votes of elderly people on doorstep. If that can be done, why can’t we get vaccines in the same way.”

In the recent Assembly polls, the Election Commission had arranged for postal ballots for people who were physically-challenged and aged over 80 years in the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic. Officials of the EC visited their homes with postal ballots.

“Here, the people aged over 80-year-old are queuing up to get vaccinated. We will be infected in this rush just by queuing up to get jabbed,” said a person who had been in the queue for over seven hours.

A health official in Arambagh, however, said: “We have nothing to do if people come and queue up from midnight. It is becoming impossible for us to control the crowd. It is not possible to vaccinate a thousand people on a day for any health centre.”

Officials of Hooghly district administration said following the pressure, they had decided to prepare a list of people to be vaccinated and then, inform them over the phone about the date and time of their visit. Out-of-turn vaccination will not be allowed, said the officials.

A state health department official said several districts were vaccinating people whose second dose was due on a first-come first-served basis.

Chief medical officer of health, Hooghly, Subhranshu Chakraborty, did not take calls from this correspondent. But a senior health official in Arambagh said: “We are calling up people to inform them about the time of vaccination. We have already put up a notice at the health centre, informing people that they should not queue up unnecessarily. Even then, people are coming in huge numbers.”

Doctors die of Covid

Two doctors in Murshidabad died of Covid-19 on Friday. Health officials said Sandipan Mondal, 37 a general physician at Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital, died at a private hospital in Behrampore on Friday morning.

Mondal was a resident of Basirhat in North 24-Parganas and tested positive 10 days ago. Uttam Dasgupta, 52, a private practitioner, died at Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital on Friday evening.

Additional reporting by Anshuman Phadikar