Kolkata private hospitals defer camps till process gets streamlined – Times of India

KOLKATA: Many off-site vaccination camps were put on hold by private hospitals on Monday after the new SOP for outreach camps was enforced. But the hospitals hope to come up with the proposed camps in a day or two once the process of implementing the new guideline is streamlined.
Earlier, the private hospitals could start their off-site camps once the vaccination site was created on Co-Win by state health officials who shared the login ID and password with them.

But now the health department has mandated that each camp will be inspected by a team from the health department before the drive kicks off. In addition, the approval letter from the department needs to be displayed at the camp along with the Co-Win authenticated code.
“Fourteen off-site camps planned by the three units of AMRI and AMC Southern Avenue have been put on hold as we were told that off-site camps run by private hospitals can only be resumed only after a team from Swasthya Bhawan inspects those sites and issues a formal approval letter,” said an official at AMRI Hospital Group.
The health department, however, allowed three ongoing off-site vaccination camps by the hospital group at Acropolis, South City and Eastern Diagnostics.
“Three of our off-site vaccination centres have been put on hold for now. We hope that we can start operating those camps in a couple of days as we need to speed up the drive,” said Medica Group of Hospitals chairperson Alok Roy.
Since the SOP came out late on Saturday night, the hospitals have been communicating with the organisers they have tied up with and informing them about these camps being deferred.
“We had planned only one off-site camp for Monday. Due to the government guideline we have deferred this. Hope the process will get streamlined in a day or two,” said R Venkatesh, regional director (East) Narayana Health.
“We were a little apprehensive about a two-day long outreach camp in Haldia, which started on Sunday. Luckily, the health department allowed us to continue it on Monday,” said Pradip Tondon, CEO Belle Vue Clinic.