MARGAO
This may leave health officials as well as politicians engaged in slugfest over vaccination baffled: Why do frontline workers from pharmaceutical companies make a beeline for the jab, while hardly any locals turn up in Margao?
This question has come to the fore after the Margao Urban Health Centre and the centre at the TB hospital atop Monte Hill threw open the vaccination for the frontline workers, mostly employees of the Verna-based pharmaceutical companies after a day-long suspension on Sunday.
A glance at the vaccination statistics dished out by the two centres, both incidentally located in Fatorda, shows that the frontline workers have outnumbered residents of Margao and Fatorda in taking the jabs.
Take the case of the Margao UHC. The centre on Monday vaccinated a total of 197 persons, a low turnout by health standards. Further inquiries, however, revealed that of the total 197 persons, a whopping number of the vaccine beneficiaries have been frontline workers.
In fact, around 151 out of 197 beneficiaries were frontline workers, including 33 women, indicating that locals who took up the jab were only 46 in number.
Similar was the story at the TB hospital atop Monte hill, which again falls in Fatorda constituency. The total number of persons vaccinated at the TB hospital on Monday was 106.
The turnout was described as the lowest given that the centre had seen 250-plus vaccinations on a single day in the past. A glance at the statistics further revealed that of the 106 vaccine beneficiaries, around 41 beneficiaries comprised frontline workers, who have taken their first dose on Monday.
The low turnout of locals in the age group of 45 years and above for the jab has left the healthcare workers baffled, throwing up the moot question why locals of Fatorda and neighbouring Margao are not coming in large numbers for the vaccine.
This question assumes significance and comes against the backdrop of the spread of coronavirus in Margao and Fatorda in a big way earlier this month.
“The politicians will do a great service to the people if they mobilize their cadre to convince and get the people out of their homes for the jab. When the Margao UHC and the TB hospital have the capacity to vaccinate 600-700 beneficiaries on a single day, we receive less than 400 persons on a given day,” remarked a healthcare worker.
