Queues grow longer at vaccination centres in Panchkula, residents demand police deployment to manage rush

As hundreds pour in to get jabbed, long queues grow outside vaccination centres across the district, with Panchkula’s Civil Hospital becoming ground zero of the inoculation drive.

However, after an unsuccessful vaccination event, which was supposed to run from 5 pm to 11 pm on Wednesday, the Civil Hospital has shut down its vaccination centre. Meanwhile, owing to the huge rush at the vaccination sites, the Sector 10 RWA has demanded that police personnel be deployed at all the sites across the district.

On Wednesday, as over 700 gathered outside the Civil Hospital upon hearing that the vaccination centre there is administering doses to people without registration or slot allotment, chaos ensued. While a target of vaccinating 500 people was announced a day before, the hospital opened the site with only 200 vaccines.

After a huge ruckus, the hospital released 100 more vaccines and a total of 300 people, all above 18, received the jab.

The drive, supposed to go on till 11 pm had to be shut by 7 pm. Several at the centre complained of being exposed to the virus.

“Will this not cause the Covid infection to spread? So many people standing together in an attempt to get the jab. The authorities should have prepared better or should not have made it a vaccination centre at all. There was risk of exposurehere,” said Swati Singh, a resident of Sector 21, who had arrived there at 5 pm but did not manage to get the jab.

Dr Meenu Sasan, District Immunisation Officer, said that the drive was held without her permission. “The PMO of the hospital had asked for a small event to jab around 100 people on Nurses Day,” she said.

Demand for deployment of police personnel

The RWA of Sector 10 Thursday urged the Deputy Commissioner to deploy at least one police personnel at the vaccination centers to manage the crowd.

The request issued by Bharat Hiteshi read, “The doctors, paramedical staff and members of welfare associations present at the spot face great difficulty in controlling and managing the crowd. This uncontrollable rush also poses grave danger and can prove to be a super-spreader event in the district.”

Vaccination centres reduced from 33 to 13

The administration deemed more than half of its vaccination centres not operational, issuing a list of 13 vaccination sites that will function on Friday. Earlier, people were being vaccinated at 33 sites throughout the week.

At least eight centres, including Government School Kalka, CHC Raipurrani, PHC Pinjore, PHC Barwala, PHC Kot, GD 25, GD 7 and Government AYUSH dispensary-9, will administer the vaccine to those between 18-44 years, only five dispensaries will administer the second dose of the vaccine to those above 45, including one for Covaxin and four for Covishield. The sites include, GD-12A for Covaxin, along with CHC Raipurrani, PHC Morni, PHC hangola and GD21 for Covishield.

Owing to a severe shortage of Covaxin in the district, only second shots of the vaccine are being administered at present.

3,646 vaccinated

Panchkula vaccinated 3,646 people on Thursday. In the past four days, the district administration has vaccinated over 15,500 people. As many as 1,761 people between the age of 18 and 44 were vaccinated on Thursday, besides 988 between the age of 45 and 59 and 810 above 60 years. 8,850 between the age of 18 and 44.