Nagpur Municipal Corporation vaccination staff go on flash strike, 23 centres hit

NAGPUR: Covid vaccination was affected in Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s (NMC) 23 off 153 centres on Saturday following a flash strike by some staff. In some centres, it was partly hit. Meanwhile, on Saturday, there will be no vaccination in NMC’s centres due to shortage of Covishield doses.
Also, the state government has planned to start vaccination of bedridden people at their homes and have sought details.
The state government has asked bedridden people to send name, address, contact number, reason for being in bed, a medical certificate by a treating physician about the condition and eligibility of patients for vaccination along with the informed consent by their near relatives or caretakers on covidvacc2bedridden@gmail.com.
Over 150 vaccinators (nurses) and Co-Win application handlers (data entry operators) working on a daily-wage basis struck work without any intimation.
Chief medical officer Dr Sanjay Chilkar told TOI that NMC had to rope in staff from urban primary health centres to continue vaccination. After 33,235 on Friday, the number of vaccinated dropped to 25,575 on Saturday.
Dr Chilkar said that from Monday the striking staff will be replaced. Several doctors, data entry operators and nurses are working on a temporary basis in Covid hospitals and vaccination centres.
The NMC used to pay Rs 17,000 per month to data entry operators, Rs 25,000 to nurses and Rs 30,000 to doctors. The payment system was revised from monthly to daily — Rs 500, Rs 700 and Rs 1,000, respectively — from this month. Unhappy with this, the staff refused to work.
NMC additional municipal commissioner Ram Joshi said that it was decided to shut down all centres on Sunday to avoid overcrowding in a few. “We “do not have sufficient stock of Covishield doses,” he said.
As the NMC had received 64,000 doses of Covishield on July 15, vaccination resumed and was held for two days. Subsequently, no fresh stock has been sent. Vaccination has happened only on 10 of the last 25 days.
Launched a day ago, no vaccination happened at NMC’s Pachpaoli ANC centre on Saturday due to lack of beneficiaries. Three pregnant women got the vax on the first day. The NMC will continue the drive and is likely to open two more centres at Daga Hospital and IGGMCH.