MUMBAI: Faced with shrinking demand within the city, some private hospitals have sought a go-ahead to vaccinate outside Mumbai where private coverage is scarce. Paid vaccination in Mumbai has seen a 41% drop in demand in July compared to June.
Dr Sanjay Kapote, director of Apollo Clinic, believes private hospitals that have doses and the resources should be allowed to spread the net. The chain, he said, has got several requests from Raigad and Ratnagiri. But since the hospital is registered for vaccination in Mumbai, it cannot set up camps outside the city. “We have around 10,000 doses with us currently. If we are given permission, we can vaccinate people in the peripheral regions of Mumbai. After all, vaccination will work only with maximum coverage,” said Kapote.
Another hospital head said they had to turn down several requests from Alibaug. “There is a master vaccination ID that is generated for centres who want to operate in Mumbai. That cannot be used outside the jurisdiction,” he said, adding that they had to decline or advise the Alibaug residents to travel to Mumbai.
In May and June, private hospitals from Mumbai were flooded with calls from other districts. However, since these had their hands full with corporate and housing society tie-ups, not many showed keenness to travel to other districts. Now many are willing to reconsider with hundreds of their slots going begging every day.
A civic official said according to rules, a private Covid vaccination centre registered to vaccinate in Mumbai cannot hold drives elsewhere with the same ID number. “It will mess with the data process since the ID is used to count vaccinations done in particular corporations and districts,” the official said. BMC additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said if the local corporation generates a new ID, hospitals should be able to operate.
Dr Prince Surana, CEO of Surana Group, said they were given special IDs when they set up a camp in Ratnagiri in May. However, they couldn’t vaccinate in Khopoli or other places due to this rule. “One solution is for the Mumbai hospital to tie up with a local hospital in that district and use their ID to vaccinate,” he said.
Private hospitals in Maharashtra have picked up the highest volume of vaccine doses, but they are largely concentrated in a few districts, including Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik and Kolhapur.
