KOLKATA: At a time when the doctors are emphasising on vaccination to fight Covid — the Calcutta Pavlov Hospital that treats mental diseases— had no answer of how to get their inmates inoculated as none of them have mobile or Aadhar cards for registering themselves as beneficiaries of the vaccination drive.
Under usual procedure, a person needs to register in the Cowin portal of the Health Ministry preferably by providing aadhar card or other identity card numbers to get the jab. However, this process could not be applied for the 604 odd inmates in Pavlov Hospital. "Like every Indian citizen, these inmates also have the right to vaccination. I took up the matter with the Union Health department and in the past one month there were numerous written communications from both sides. The Ministry has made special arrangements through which I have registered on behalf of all the inmates using my mobile number in the Cowin portal. The vaccination process has started on Monday and presently the inmates of the female ward are getting the jab," Dr, Ganesh Prasad, Superintendent of Calcutta Pavlov Hospital said. There are 350 female and 250 odd male inmates at Pavlov. The inoculation of
the male will start from Wednesday. The vaccination process is being executed by the Health wing of Kolkata Municipal Corporation. According to sources in the state Health department, this process will be applicable for inmates of all mental hospitals, correctional homes, vagrant homes, leprosy homes etc in the state.