The state health department and the Calcutta Municipal Corporation are not relying solely on text messages to bring health workers to vaccination sites, but are also calling them up to try and push up the number of vaccinated.
Many health workers told Metro they received calls from vaccination sites where their names were enrolled. A doctor attached to a private hospital, who had already received the first dose, got a call from the CMC about the second dose.
Another doctor who got the first dose at the hospital where he works said he got a call and was told that his name figured on the list sent to another hospital.
Though it points towards a lack of coordination, sources said this was happening because the department was pushing hard to achieve high vaccination numbers in the state.
Health officials said they would push further by increasing the number of vaccination sites.
Bengal is now third among all states in the number of vaccinations per session and seventh in the number of persons vaccinated. Officials of the health department said their aim was to further improve the state’s position.
According to the website of the Press Information Bureau, Bengal vaccinated 2,42,761 people till 7pm on Saturday.
“We were running about 430 Covid-19 vaccination sites in the past week. We want to raise the count to 500 this week,” said an official in the health department. “There are 54 vaccination sites in Calcutta. The count in the city, too, will increase.”
The high turnout in the state can be linked to good advocacy and to the fact that many senior doctors took the vaccine in the initial days, sending out a message to doctors junior to them and other health workers that Covid shots are safe.
That the authorities are keen on speeding up the Covid vaccination is evident from the CMC’s directive to employees to call up every name on the next day’s list.
“Just a text message may not convince a person to turn up at the vaccination site. A call urging the person to take the shot will be more effective. We have told our staff to call up each and every person whose name figures on the list,” said a CMC official.
The authorities are realising the importance of awareness campaigns and measures such as calling up each and every recipient as the state gets ready to inoculate almost seven lakh frontline workers.
The health department is organising seminars among health-care workers to ensure no one refuses to take the homegrown Covaxin, one of two vaccines against Covid-19 granted emergency use approval in India, the other being Covishield.
The health department is aiming to complete the administration of the first dose to all 6 lakh health workers in the state in another month and a half. Vaccination of frontline workers will start on February 2.
