Covid Vaccine: Many hospitals in Ghaziabad do not have clarity on when the next stock will arrive.
Even as the centre continues to claim that there is no shortage of vaccines against COVID-19, private hospitals in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad, near Delhi, are facing a crisis. A few private hospitals have not been carrying out vaccinations since Monday.
Many hospitals in Ghaziabad do not have clarity on when the next stock will arrive and have pasted notices at their entrance, saying they have run out of vaccine does. Hospitals have asked people to call them to check before they reach there.
The reports of vaccine shortage in Ghaziabad comes at a time when Maharashtra, the state worst-hit by Covid, has been reporting shortage of vaccines in several parts of the state, with some parts pausing inoculations.
"We don't have vaccine stock since Monday. We could vaccinate only 50 people on Monday instead of the usual 200. We have stopped vaccinations since then. There's no clarity on when next stock will come," Dr Alok Gupta, director Lyf Hospital in Ghaziabad's Indirapuram, told NDTV.
"We are willing to vaccinate but no stock is being sent from the government. People with pre-booked slots are turning up for vaccination and are arguing with us after being told about the unavailability (of vaccines)."
Deepak Gupta, a 49-year-old businessman, is among those who were turned away by a hospital. "I have been running around vaccination centres for the last 3 to 4 days. There are no vaccines anywhere. We want to protect our health as well as of those around us but no vaccines available," he said.
"We are taking time off from work to get vaccinated but it's all getting wasted due to the vaccine shortage."
70-year-old Rajrani Verma, who had to turn back from another private hospital due to unavailability of vaccines said, "We were seeing in the news just yesterday that the government is promising that they will not let vaccine quantities fall short. But we came here to the vaccination centre and they said that there are no vaccines."
NDTV found that atleast 13 private hospitals in Ghaziabad do not have any vaccine stock currently:
Lyf Hospital
Amicare Hospital
Santosh Hospital
St Joseph Hospital
Gayatri Hospital
Atlanta Hospital
Navin Hospital
Vasundhara Hospital
Chandra Laxmi Hospital
Ganesh Hospital
Nagar Hospital
Shreya Hospital
Paras Hospital
Most private hospitals have been told by authorities that they will get new vaccine stock tentatively between Saturday-Tuesday. By the end of Wednesday, Ghaziabad had 12,000 doses available and nearly 10,000 people get vaccinated on Thursdays usually. (For context-Monday, Thursday, and Friday are focus days fot the local authority. Other days are leaner as routine health programmes, including other vaccination drives for newborn children and pregnant women are also held. Other days, daily vaccination is around 5,500.)
In Ghaziabad, the positivity rate is at 1.36%, highest since December last year, causing the local authorities to impose a night curfew from today, between 10 pm to 5 am.
When NDTV contacted Ghaziabad DM Ajay Shankar Pandey, he refused to comment on camera, but claimed that there was no vaccine shortage and some hospitals were not being sent vaccines temporarily because there are discrepancies in their vaccination registration process.
The centre has been saying that opposition ruled states have been complaining of vaccine shortage only to play politics. However, the vaccine shortage is clearly evident in Ghaziabad, a city in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh.
Uttar Pradesh is among the eight states that account for 60 per cent of the total vaccine doses given so far in the country. The state logged 6,002 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours, pushing its total caseload to over 6.45 lakh.
Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday denied any vaccine shortage in the country and hit out at demands by states like Maharashtra and Delhi for opening up vaccinations to more adults.