TN will begin vaccination of govt frontline workers on Feb 1: Minister

TN will begin vaccination of govt frontline workers on Feb 1: Minister

200 Private Hospitals Roped In

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:30.01.2021

The public health department will start vaccinating frontline workers in home department, local administration and revenue department from across the state from February 1 and allow nearly 200 private hospitals to start vaccinating staff in their facilities, health minister C Vijayabaskar announced on Friday.

The state has inoculated less than 20% of its healthcare providers since January 16. On Friday, 8,659 healthcare workers took the vaccine, which pushed the total number of vaccine recipients in the state to 97,126 against the total of 5.19 lakh people registered in the portal. Earlier this week, the state had urged the centre to allow simultaneous vaccination of frontline workers.

Until Friday, the state has registered 1.8 lakh employees of the home department, 1.7 lakh employees of local administration department and 1.2 lakh from revenue department in the Cowin portal, and is hoping to add at least one lakh more names in the portal. “We will start vaccinations for all preregistered government employees from Monday,” Vijayabaskar told reporters.

Meanwhile, smaller hospitals with 150 or more healthcare providers have been asked to collect the vaccine from respective regional vaccination centres and offer it to their employees. “We have a database of the employees registered in the portal. They can collect the vaccines from us and offer it to their staff at their own hospitals. Hospitals that have fewer staff can visit the nearest government centre for the vaccine,” he said. The smaller hospitals should have adequate space, four vaccination officers, vaccinators and observation rooms to set up the inhouse camp. Officials say increasing the number of sites will encourage more doctors and healthcare providers to take the vaccine.

On Friday, for the second consecutive day, the state increased the number of sites to 286 from 236 on Thursday and 166 on Wednesday. The number of sessions was increased to 298 from 250 on Thursday. The state which had the capacity to vaccinate 29,800 healthcare providers but only 8659 people showed up. In the last 14 days, the state had the capacity to vaccinate more than 2.6 lakh healthcare providers, but the state has managed to vaccinate only 37% of its capacity. “Many people still hesitate to take the Covaxin. I took it and I am fine,” Vijayabaskar said. So far, 2,332 people have received the Bharat biotech vaccine.

Earlier, chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said the government had made arrangements to vaccinate 20% of the population, which is 1.60 crore, this year.

SHOT OF LIFE: On Friday, 8,659 healthcare workers took the vaccine, pushing the total number of vaccine recipients in the state to 97,126