Long queues with a waiting time of more than 2 hours, cancellation of registered appointments, delay in the arrival of vaccines, and shortage of vaccines were some of the issues that Vadodarians faced on the first day of the drive.
After the decision from the center, Vadodara followed suit and opened up its vaccination drive for the age group of 18-45. However, not all vaccine centers started to administer vaccines to adults below the age of 45. One such individual, aged 41, who had gone to Dr. Saravpalli Radhakrishnan Prathmik Shala to get the vaccine had to return from the doorsteps of the center. The particular center still provides vaccination only to people aged 45 and above.
One of the private centers for the vaccine, Sahaj Hospital, was not supplied with the vaccines and had to avert registered vaccine-takers. The notification given to private COVID vaccination Centers (CVCs) said, “As per instructions from GoI, CVCs are unable to provide vaccination services to the beneficiaries from May 1, 2021.” The private centers were also instructed to “cancel all planned sessions from May 1 onwards immediately.”
Hence, people who had registered online and selected the center were diverted to Gayatri Vidyamandir. Due to limited stock for registered beneficiaries, Gayatri Vidhyamandir too turned these people away.
Deepesh Gabani, after his vaccine appointment at a nearby vaccine center at Ektanagar UHC got automatically canceled, had to travel from Sama to Gotri Talav to get the vaccine. He said, “The online portal shows ‘Ektanagar’ and ‘Ekatanagar’ as two different centers. Additionally, the automatic cancellation and other sloppy features have confused the masses.”
The chosen centers that started the drive on May 1 saw people below 45 queuing up from early in the morning. Deepak Patel, a 43-year-old accompanied by his wife, said, “We had been given a slot of 11-12 AM, but the vaccines arrived at the center at 11:45 AM. It took me roughly two hours to get the vaccine administered.” He added that, apart from the wait, everything else had went down smoothly at the center.
Other young registered vaccine-takers also complained of a lack of infrastructure. Reports about the denial of availability of vaccines at the PHC Waghodia also surfaced wherein despite having the appointments, people were sent back.
