Senior citizens in Mumbai showed huge enthusiasm and gathered in significant numbers at various walk-in centers at the mega city to get the first jab of the Covid-19 vaccine on Monday.
However, at the Cooper Hospital Vaccination Centre in Mumbai, they were in for some disappointment as the hospital servers were down. The technical glitch not only hit the first time vaccinators, but those scheduled to get a second dose of the vaccine were also affected.
This left several senior citizens, who travelled with great hardships, high and dry as they were asked to return home and come another day.
The 84-year-old Subhang Mehta, who planned his day and showed up early at the center, was full of resentment. “It’s sad that on the first day of vaccination for us, BMC says the system is down. Hope they get things up and running soon. We senior citizens face a lot of problems coming here, we pay for travel, the body doesn’t support it. So they should consider these things and fix the issue. I have been told to try tomorrow or the day after as today server is down,” he said.
The 75-year-old Kishore Naik was another beneficiary, who was part of the disappointed lot of seniors who couldn’t get the jab on the first day. “On Saturday, I went to the ward office and enquired about the process for today with a health officer there. He told me that I can go to the nearest vaccination center and get vaccinated from March 1, onwards. I came to the Cooper hospital center as early as 8:30 am. My wife and I have been waiting for over 2 hours but they are now saying the server is down. And people coming in for the second dose also are not able to get it. I was also not aware about the 12 to 5pm timing and tried registering on the app prior but didn’t go through,” he said.
Meanwhile, after initial glitches, things were normalised at other designated centers like the Jumbo Covid Centre at BKC, which saw a huge turnout of senior citizens for the spot registration on the first day of the new phase.
The 61-years-old Vivek Chitnis became the first person to get vaccinated at BKC center and is likely the first one in the 60 plus category to get vaccinated in the whole of Mumbai. While sitting in the observation center after getting his first jab, this is what he had to say: “I was looking forward to this day and I was determined that when this will be available for me I knew I would take it. The whole world was waiting for it. We knew that this is a huge inoculation drive and the app is new so we expected some delay, so I was prepared for that also.”
While the BMC has not set any target for centers carrying out vaccination, the civic body is ironing out all the initial hick-ups of Day One to make the process more seamless for the elderly beneficiaries.
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