Odisha’s State Health Department has asked the Centre to release the surplus Covid vaccination doses to the state government from private hospitals share.
The Odisha government disclosed in a detailed statistical report that despite being allocated with 925560 doses of vaccines (Covishield – 756660 & Covaxin – 168900) in June. Private vaccination centers procured only 66500 doses (Covishield – 59000 & Covaxin – 7500) for vaccination. This accounted for only 7.2 percent of the total, leaving the remaining 859060 doses as balance.
The state government has collaborated with all of the private hospitals in the districts/municipal corporations to pool their vaccine demands for July 2021. However, the response for procuring doses has been relatively low.
While the Centre has authorized 1016970 doses (Covishield – 843930 & Covaxin – 173040) for July. The demand from private hospitals has been a total of 156830 (Covishield – 126920 & Covaxin – 29910) only 15.4 percent of the total.
The mismatch between demand and allocation, Odisha is likely to be left out of the remaining 860140 vaccination doses. ACS PK Mohapatra expressed concern in a letter to the Health Ministry. The State is losing a large number of vaccines allotted for private institutions in this context.
While Odisha can vaccinate 3.5 lakh people every day, the Centre has given the state 3050910 doses for July, which will be consumed in 8 to 10 days. The data is based on the State government’s letter to the Centre.
According to Mohapatra, around 859060 balance vaccine doses from June and 860140 doses from July 2021 were allocated to private hospitals. But not procurement vaccination should be diverted to the State government’s quota so that Odisha is not disadvantaged.
Due to the low presence of private medical care organizations in the State’s health sector, the State government recently requested that the Centre modify the government-private allocation ratio from 75:25 to 95:5.
