In the wake of requests from citizens to vaccinate senior citizens at their residence since many are indisposed and are unable to visit a vaccination centre, the mayor Firhad Hakim announced today that Kolkata Municipal Corporation is ready to vaccinate such citizens at home in the presence of the doctor that is attending to the patient.

Mr Hakim today said that vaccination of citizens within the KMC area is almost completed but there are citizens who still have not received their doses since they are not in any condition to step out of their residences to get inoculated due to poor health conditions. “In such cases, we will vaccinate these persons at their homes and for which the members of the family can directly send a request on the mayor’s WhatsApp number- 9830037493.”

He further said that such vaccinations will be done in the presence of the doctor under whose treatment the patient is. “It is vital that the doctor attending to the patient is present while the vaccine is administered since we do not know the health condition of the patient and hence the doctor has to give the clearance. The family physician must remain present for at least 30 minutes after administering a dose in case any emergency takes place.“ On the documents required for vaccination at home, he said that the recipient’s Aadhaar details along with the contact of the attending doctor need to be sent on the mentioned WhatsApp number.

“The civic body will first contact the doctor and inform him/her about the timings and the date of vaccination. We will mostly administer vaccines to such patients during the evening hours. Everyone will receive vaccines and if they don’t they can inform the KMC immediately.”

Meanwhile, it has come to light that in several cases during Covid RT PCR tests, patients are not providing their proper residential addresses and contact number during sample collection which is making it difficult for the KMC to contact the person on testing positive.

Mr Hakim said “citizens must provide their residential addresses and contact numbers so we can reach out to them and keep an update on their health conditions. In case of any emergency, we can then quickly reach out and shift the person to the hospital. Several members in our team who were dealing with covid positive patient data and making calls to check on them had tested positive which led to a temporary disruption in the process. However, now things have returned to normalcy and we are calling to check on persons who have tested positive within the KMC area.”

Further, as per the current list of micro containment zones complied by the KMC, there are now a total of 18 micro containment zones within the KMC area. Ward 93 which had several of such zones has finally been struck off the list. Most micro containment zones are now in areas under Karaya Police Station, New Alipore P.S and Beliaghata P.S.