20,000 volunteers to vaccinate 6 lakh health-care workers in Bengal- each vaccination facility will be run by a representative of the health department and four persons from an outside agency

Each vaccination facility will be run by a representative of the health department and four persons from an outside agency

The department has started training key personnel in handling Covid-19 vaccines once they reach the cold-chain systems

Kinsuk Basu   |   TT   |   Calcutta   |   22.12.20  :  The state health department is talking to voluntary organisations to draw up a list of around 20,000 volunteers who will vaccinate around six lakh health-care workers in Bengal in the first phase of Covid vaccination.

Officials of the health department said they talked to representatives of several voluntary organisations on Monday seeking their support in providing volunteers. Such talks will continue over the next few days.

According to the plan, each vaccination facility will be run by a representative of the health department and four persons from an outside agency. Each facility will vaccinate 100 people a day. If the infrastructure permits, more than one vaccination facility can be set up in one compound.

“We have started making preparations for these facilities in medical colleges and hospitals across Calcutta. We will also support private health-care facilities with more than 100 employees enrolled for vaccination to set up vaccination centres,” said an official of the health department.

The department has started training key personnel in handling Covid-19 vaccines once they reach the cold-chain systems.

The state has around 20,000 vaccinators. On Friday, a training session was held for some of them at an address off EM Bypass. Those who attended the programme will visit districts and train other vaccinators. The second round of training will be held in Siliguri from Wednesday.

A vaccination facility or a booth will have three rooms. There will be two big rooms, where recipients will gather and wait for some time after taking a shot. The vaccine will be administered in the third room.

According to preliminary estimates, 6,000 such facilities will have to be set up across the state in the first phase of the vaccination drive,

“A recipient will have to wait for at least half an hour in the resting room after taking a shot. Two persons will monitor his or her condition during the period,” an official at Swasthya Bhavan said.  “There will be a gap of 28 days between the first and the second dose of the vaccine. A recipient will be certified as ‘vaccinated for coronavirus’ a fortnight after administering the second dose.”

According to the plan, a health-care worker who has registered for vaccination will be assigned the centre closest to his or her registered address. The recipient will be informed about the date and time of the vaccination.

Once a candidate turns up at a facility or a booth, a guard will check the registration details and ask him or her to wait in the designated room. A volunteer, to be known as Vaccinator-II, will run another round of checks to confirm the identity of the recipient and that she or he is scheduled to receive a dose that day.

The candidate will then be taken to the vaccination room, where a trained vaccinator from the health department, to be known as Vaccinator I, will administer the dose.

After the jab, the recipient will be guided to the resting room where two other persons will keep a watch for any ailment that might develop after the shot for at least half an hour. If the candidate develops no complications within this period, he or she will be free to step out, health department officials said.