PANAJI
The Indian Medical Association (IMA)-Goa on Wednesday attempted to lay to rest the reports that 1,200 members of IMA-Goa have threatened to withdraw from the ongoing Covid-19 vaccination drive as their names were not fed into the Co-WIN portal despite timely submissions.
IMA-Goa President Dr Vinayak Buvaji stated, “There is no debate on this issue within the IMA. There is some miscommunication and it has erupted. The statement that has made its way to the media is that names of many members have not been registered on the Co-WIN portal and that we should withdraw from the drive. But nothing like this has been decided by the IMA.”
He attributed the absence of several names from the portal to “technical glitches”.
“When we noticed that names of some HCWs were uploaded on the portal, some names were not uploaded either because these were overlooked or it was because of a technical error. So, when the vaccination drive began, several HCWs realised that their names were not on the portal at all and this is where the confusion began.”
Dr Buvaji assured that the IMA-Goa has adopted a few measures to overcome this confusion. When the IMA officials approached the Health Secretary, both the Collectors and the officials of the Directorate of Health Services (DHS) with this grievance, they were informed that if the feeding of data into the system was not carried out properly, it will not reflect on the portal at all.
“We told the authorities to allow us to reload the names on the portal systematically. The chiefs of each of the seven branches of IMA-Goa were asked to submit the complete data to us. We then had a complete list of names and this data was forwarded to the Collectors’ offices. But there was a weekend and so the data was loaded on Monday morning. By then, the portal had been frozen as per the orders of the Central government. When it reopens, the names that had been missed out will be loaded," Dr Buvaji explained.
It was learnt that the Co-WIN portal had been frozen after the lapse of extension given on the deadline to submit the names. February 12 is the last date for receiving the first shot of the vaccine and the second booster dose is expected to be given soon after.
In an official email to the DHS, the IMA-Goa has requested for an addition of the names of HCWs which were previously missed to the new registration list comprising other categories of frontline workers.
“There is a meeting scheduled tomorrow, where we have requested the DHS to raise this matter with the Central government and to reopen the portal. Data is already ready and only has to be copied from the Collectors’ offices,” Dr Buvaji stated.
