KOLKATA: A scuffle broke out between police personnel and vaccine recipients at ESI Hospital in Maniktala on Saturday morning after some tried to barge into the hospital demanding coupons for vaccination.
The hospital, which has a capacity to inoculate 1,000-1,200 a day, had stopped issuing coupons after its quota of recipients for the day had been reached. Police had to be called in to control the crowd and vaccination had to be suspended for some time. It resumed very soon, though.
ESI Manikatala is among the government’s mega vaccination centres that have been inoculating more than a thousand per day. SSKM Hospital and Ahindra Mancha have been leading the pack with 1,500 doses a day. ESI authorities claimed that a majority of their recipients are now from the districts, who have been queueing up a day in advance.
“We had reached our capacity and could not accommodate more but some refused to listen. We have two counters and can’t exceed our capacity of around 1,200. There was chaos for some time till the police came in and controlled the situation,” said ESI Hospital MSVP Mayukh Roy.
The incident at Maniktala is a reflection of the growing unease and at times unrest in queues across Covid vaccination centres (CVCs) as uncertainty over whether one would get the shot after spending hours in the queue is triggering anxiety, frustration and frayed tempers, often degenerating into jostling and fisticuffs.
At some CVCs, including one situated near Gariahat, there were allegations of spots in the queue being sold at Rs 100-Rs 150. “There are youths from local slums who queue up very early, much before sunrise, and then leave the slots to people desperate for a jab against a premium,” one of the recipients who had paid Rs 100 for a slot in the queue said.
Civic health officials said the problem was triggered due to the demand-supply mismatch. “First, it isn’t certain how many jabs will be given at a CVC daily. Since it depends on availability, it could be 50 one day when availability is poor and 100 or even 200 the next when supply improves. For people in the queue, there is no way of knowing how many will be vaccinated at the centre that day. Thus, after hours of waiting, when they learn that they will not get a slot for the jab, it naturally leads to extreme disappointment,” an official at a CVC explained.
There was no resentment at the KMC-run CVCs though as supply improved on Saturday. “On an average, we could administer 200 shots at each of the 195 vaccination clinics. So, there was no question of any resentment,” said a civic health official.
The state government had more than 28 lakh doses in stock on Saturday. The next consignment — 4 lakh Covaxin doses — is expected by Monday.
