After the government of India allowed the municipal corporation to include private hospitals to undertake the vaccination drive, 13 private hospitals in Mumbai are to be added to the list on Thursday where senior citizens and citizens aged 45 and above with comorbid conditions can queue up but not without prior registration.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is doing everything possible to ensure that the senior citizens get vaccines and do not go without them, and hence has increased staff at all the centres to manage the crowd and get arrangements everyone can be catered to, done.
Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner, said, “We are opening up more vaccination centres to ensure that those who have queued up are given the vaccine shots, but at the same time we also want to appeal to citizens to not panic and crowd the centres and try to register on the portal, and as a last resort, walk-in to the centres. There are enough vaccines available and we will be giving the shots to the targeted group of people.”
While the on-spot registrations are available only at five places in the city – BKC Jumbo Centre, NESCO Jumbo Centre, Mulund Jumbo Centre, Dahisar Jumbo Centre and Seven Hills Hospital – at the other places one needs to be registered on the CoWIN portal.
However, one can walk-in into any of the government vaccination centers and private hospitals even without prior appointment.
A health official explained, “The portal gives you an appointment but if you don’t have it and have just plainly registered, then a senior citizen of Borivli for instance in Andheri, can walk-in at Cooper Hospital and get the jab without any appointment. But the facility of registering on the spot is not available at Cooper as there is no separate counter there.”
Surjitt Sahani
