Centre directs states to utilise private hospitals in full capacity for Covid-19 vaccination drive

The Ministry of Health directed the states that all private hospitals are not empanelled under central government schemes are now permitted to operate as vaccination sites.

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India launched its first Covid-19 vaccination drive on January 16. (Representational/AP)

In a push to further increase the vaccination coverage among the general population, the Centre has directed the states to utilise 100 per cent capacity of private hospitals functioning as Covid-19 vaccination centres.

In the first two days of the second phase of innoculation drive that began on Monday – where all citizens above the age of 60 years and those above 45 years with associated comorbidities are eligible for vaccination – only private hospitals empanelled under Ayushman Bharat, Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), and State Health Insurance were designated as vaccination centres.

However, the Centre Tuesday directed states to utilise all the private hospitals for the vaccination drive. “Private hospitals not empanelled under the above mentioned three categories have also been permitted to operate as COVID Vaccination Centers (CVCs)…States/UTs can proactively make efforts to use these private hospitals as CVCs,” the Union Health Ministry said.

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The decision was communicated to the states on Tuesday in a high-level meeting chaired by Rajesh Bhushan, Union Health Secretary along with Dr Ram S Sharma, Chairman of Empowered Group on Vaccine Administration (Co-WIN).

However, the states have directed to ensure that all the private hospitals that will operate as vaccination centres must have “an adequate number of vaccinators, adequate space for observation of the vaccinated, adequate cold chain arrangement and adequate arrangement for the management of Adverse Event Following Immunisation”.

Kaunain Sheriff M

Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies. With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health. His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award. Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time. Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More

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