In view of the lack of coordination and approval from the respective state governments for a speedy COVID Vaccination programme, the Association of Healthcare Providers- India (AHPI) today said that governments need to provide approvals to all big, medium, and small private hospitals for vaccination. By giving approvals to a large number of private providers, India can achieve 20 million doses per day as against nearly 2 million doses currently.

Just to cite a case, Mumbai Municipal Corporation has approved only 44-private hospitals for vaccination, whereas there are more than 1000 private hospitals/ nursing homes in Mumbai.  It seems that the governments are not utilizing the huge capacity available in private sector. AHPI, on behalf of private providers, is ready to coordinate with the governments for identifying hospitals and nursing homes, which have adequate infrastructure. The state governments should include more hospitals/ nursing homes from private sector for vaccination,” said Dr Girdhar Gyani, Director General, AHPI.

“We are currently inoculating nearly 2 million people every day. There are about 25000 private hospitals with 30-100 bed capacity and 40,000 hospitals with a 30-bed capacity and over 3,000 bigger private hospitals with a 100-bed and above capacity. If state governments rope in these providers, India can easily achieve over 20 million doses per day. Small and medium hospitals can inoculate nearly 60 people every day, medium ones can easily cover 200 people whereas bigger hospitals would be able to vaccinate over 1,000 people every day. Hence, we have enough capacity to scale up the vaccination drive. Having contribute in COVID treatment in big way, there has to be strong will and trust on private sector. Government may also launch aggressive campaign to educate population for vaccination as there are confusing messages in social media, resulting in hesitency, he added.

The AHPI has come forward to coordinate with all stakeholders especially the state governments for a speedy vaccination drive in the country. Moreover, the Association has recently launched a 3-hour online Vaccinator Course to impart knowledge and training for healthcare workers based on the WHO and Union Health Ministry Guidelines.v