Delhi: North, South civic bodies gear-up for mass Covid inoculation drive

New Delhi, Jan 7 More than 100 health care workers of North Delhi Municipal Corporation (North MCD) and South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) participated in a dry-run for the Covid vaccine rollout which was carried out at seven sites including two corporation-run hospitals on Wednesday.

The corporations said that mock drill for the Covid inoculation was conducted successfully as all the aspects concerning the immunization were found running smoothly.

The dry-run at North MCD took place at Bara Hindu Rao Hospital and Kasturba Hospital where around sixty health care workers participated. While it was conducted at five Maternity Mother and Child Welfare (MCW) Centres from Hari Nagar, Bijawasan, Sriniwas Puri, Fatehpur Beri and Munirka under the SDMC. Total 45 health care workers participated there.

Leader of House (SDMC), Narendra Chawla, said that teams of senior doctors from the corporation conducted the dry run successfully at the MCW centres following the guidelines issued by the Central government.

"All the procedures related to vaccination were adopted in a manner in which vaccination will be done in coming days," he commented.

Chawla informed that the vaccination capacity of each centre in SDMC is 100 as per the prescribed guidelines.

Besides, at each centre, SDMC health department has dedicated a reception, waiting room, registration hall, vaccination room and observation ward where health of the people will be analysed for 30 minutes after vaccination to check adverse events post receiving the jab, he added.

Meanwhile, Jai Prakash, Mayor, North MCD also said that civic body-run hospitals are fully prepared for the mass Corona vaccination drive. "We tested it with sixty healthcare workers and found everything working just fine," he said.

"The hospitals (Hindu Rao and Kasturba) have converted their swine flu wards into a vaccination point. Besides, two ICU beds are also provisioned in case a vaccine receiver witnesses any severe adverse event post receiving the vaccine," Prakash informed.

However, the Kasturba Hospital does not house an ICU ward. Speaking on this, Prakash assured that people who may require ICU admission post-vaccination at Kasturba will be taken to other hospitals in proximity. "We will admit them to LNJP and other hospitals wherever the ICU beds are available," he said.

The dry-run in Delhi began last week at the three sites. Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, Shahdara, the Urban Primary Health Centre, Daryaganj, and Venkateshwar Hospital, Dwarka, were the first in the national capital to conduct the dry-run in the national capital.

Meanwhile, the centre would conduct a nationwide dry-run in over 700 districts on Friday ahead of the Covid vaccination campaign. However, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana would be two exceptions as the first one had conducted such an exercise on Tuesday and the latter had planned to do so on Thursday.

( With inputs from IANS )