Aurangabad, July 10:
The vaccination drive for citizens of age 18 years and above got started in the city on June 22. The drive, however, is not implemented regularly due to a shortage of vaccine supply. The vaccine is available, on selected days, and that too by standing for hours at a stretch in long queues. Hence to avoid rush and chances of contracting infection, many citizens are nowadays preferring to take the vaccine in private hospitals by paying the fixed charges.
As per the government orders, the Covishield vaccine is available for Rs 780 and Covaxin for Rs 1,410. So far, 39,573 citizens had taken their vaccine in nine private hospitals of the city.
The name of private hospitals and the number of citizens, who had taken the vaccine (in bracket) from them, are as follows: Aims Hospital (148), Krupamayi Hospital (4,031), Medicover Hospital (1,931), MIT Hospital (370), Hedgewar Hospital (5,910), MGM Hospital (3,158), Bajaj Hospital (21,764), United Ciigma Hospital (1,154) and Alpine Hospital (571).
The beneficiaries claimed that they preferred to take vaccines from private hospitals to avoid standing for a long time in queues, to avoid rush so that they could maintain social distance and there is no need to make rounds of the vaccination centre. They also claimed that the mismanagement is also felt in the vaccination drive.