The district administration’s bid to rope in private hospitals to give a leg up to the ongoing measles-rubella vaccination campaign in Kozhikode district has received a lukewarm response. With the campaign ending in a couple of days, the district has just about managed to cross 50% of coverage.
Sarala Nair, District Reproductive Child Healthcare Officer, said on Tuesday that 889 children were vaccinated on Sunday, observed as ‘MR Sunday’ by 30 hospitals in the district.
Sources in the Health Department said that each hospital was given between 10-20 vials and 10 injections are possible with each vial. Thus, the number of children vaccinated was much below the target of 50 per vaccinator per day fixed by the State Technical Advisory Group or the 100 per vaccinator per day by the senior officials later.
Also, some of the 30 private hospitals mentioned above turned away parents who went there to vaccinate their wards. When this correspondent visited a prominent hospital in the city in the morning, they claimed that they could not give the facility as “it was a Sunday.” The institution, however, gave a list to the department, claiming that they had vaccinated 13 children.
Meanwhile, the plan of six major private hospitals to adopt one school each as part of the drive has also not reportedly paid results. The authorities of a school on the outskirts claimed that the private hospital staff did not visit them till Monday evening, but were eager to place a banner with their institution’s name on the school premises.
The decision to involve private hospitals in the drive followed a suggestion by the Indian Academy of Paediatrics at a meeting. Paediatricians were given charge of the programmes in respective hospitals and the Health Department staff were supposed to supervise the work.
