First phase of Covid vaccination drive off to a smooth start in Bengaluru

The Victoria hospital at the Bangalore Medical College was the centre of action in the tech city as the vaccination drive kicked off in the state on Saturday.

After the rush hour at 11.30 am when Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa along with Health and Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar among others visited the vaccination centre, it was mostly business as usual at the hospital with patients waiting in queues for medical consultations at the hospital. The inauguration day witnessed 34 frontline healthcare professionals getting jabbed with the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine Covishield. They were greeted with roses after the vaccination process was complete.

Sandesh Khandelwal, who was one of the first beneficiaries to be vaccinated, says the whole process took almost an hour including the 30-minute time spent at the observation room. For those who came later, it was a 35-40 minutes process, including the observation time. Khandelwal said had a little apprehension in mind before the process, but he felt normal after the vaccination. “Nothing problematic at all, I don’t even have pain at the site of vaccination,” said Khandelwal, a neurosurgeon at the hospital.

All beneficiaries had to go through a registration process on the basis of their ID cards before entering the vaccination room on the first floor of Victoria Hospital, where the vaccine doses were stored in blue coloured ice boxes with nurses awaiting the participants one-by-one. After the vaccination, the person had to be seated for at least 30 minutes for observation where they were offered refreshments.

All the beneficiaries went back to their duties in the campus after the observation period was over.

The Bangalore Medical College campus has 11 vaccination centres where more than 6,000 people will be vaccinated within 10 days. Every centre will have a specialist to tackle any kind of anaphylactic reaction. Emergency rooms have been created at all the vaccination centres at the medical college to address such cases. The vaccination team at each centre will have five members, two security personnel to validate the identity of the beneficiary and three nurses to vaccinate and observe the healthcare professional after the process is complete.

H Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman of Manipal Hospitals, who was also vaccinated at Victoria Hospital on day 1 said the process of vaccination was extremely smooth. “The staff was courteous and professional. They explained the whole procedure , mentioned the side effects and observed me for half an hour after the vaccine after which a doctor came and checked the vaccination site. It’s been three hours of the vaccination and I am feeling fine with no side-effects so far,” he said. Manipal Hospital in the city is going to begin the vaccination drive from Sunday, where around 4,200 frontline workers are going to be jabbed. Around 250 people will be managing the show at the hospital, said Ballal.

At Aster CMI hospital in the city, 1,500 frontline workers would be administered the vaccine in a span of three days which is likely to begin on Monday. The hospital is in the process of setting up five booths with each having a capacity to vaccinate 100 people during the day between 7 am and 6 pm. “Vaccinations have been going on in our hospitals day in and day out so it is not a big deal for us. The only issue is the process. If people come later than their allotted timing, it might become a challenge,” said Hemanth Kumar, Business Head, Aster Clinics, Nodal officer for Covid, Aster Hospitals, Bangalore Cluster.

Around 243 vaccination centres have been set up in Karnataka. “We aim to cover 24,300 frontline warriors today itself,” said state cabinet minister Sudhakar on Saturday. The first phase is expected to be completed within a week in which over 700,000 frontline workers are expected to be vaccinated.