Procurement cap eased to minimum 500 doses
Irfan Tramboo
Srinagar, May 6: After much ado, the private hospitals have finally begun the process of administering the third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in Kashmir even as the start of the process was announced at the beginning of April this year.
Officials told Excelsior that the private hospitals, as well as nursing homes in Kashmir, were not willing to start the process of administering a third precaution dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in Kashmir due to various logistical issues which they had highlighted.
“They were not interested in procuring the vaccine doses on their own and also had some issues with regard to the pricing due to which the process could not be started well in time,” officials said.
However, a few days ago, the officials held a meeting with the administrators of the private hospitals as well as the nursing homes in which the concerned were informed about the importance of the third dose and their role in ensuring the administration of the same.
The officials said that they were also made aware of the guidelines of the Government of India in this regard, especially the procurement of the vaccine doses.
“They had issues with regard to procurement, and they were told that they could procure the same jointly and then distribute the same as per the requirement, even as earlier there was a cap that minimum 6000 doses were to be procured. However, the same has been brought down to 500 doses to facilitate the process of vaccination in Kashmir,” the officials said.
Concerning the pricing, officials said the private hospitals can charge Rs 386 at a maximum which includes the service charge at a maximum of Rs 150.
As of now, officials said, Ramzana Hospital has procured 500 doses of Covishield to be administered as precaution doses to the eligible people, while 3 more hospitals jointly have procured around 2000 Covishield doses directly from the Serum Institute, which they are yet to receive.
The officials said that the change in the cap of the procurement has also helped in persuading the private hospitals to start the vaccination process, which they said, is currently going on.
It is to be noted here that, not all the private hospitals have begun the process of administering the precaution dose. Rather, 4 such hospitals which include Ramzana Hospital, Khyber Hospital, Shifa Hospital and Classic have started administering the doses in Kashmir.
“The private hospitals have started the procurement of the vaccine doses in Kashmir and the vaccination has started; in Jammu, it was already going on at some of the selected private hospitals,” the officials said.
As per the officials, with the passage of a week or so, the pace of the administration of the third COVID dose will pick up, especially after the arrival of the procurement to the other private hospitals which have also directly placed their orders.
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