Corona Vaccination? “A nightmare and purgatory act”

Hemington James
theombudsmanews@gmail.com

To fight the Corona pandemic with full strength and power the union and the state government wants everyone to be vaccinated.  However, from the day governments declared everyone above 18 years of age to be administered with the immunity booster, people have been facing enormous troubles even in registering themselves for the dose. One such case is of a city based businessman who had to take pain of driving 20 km from his home for first vaccination of his daughter.

Failed registrations
Nikhil Shah, 52, is an electronics engineer and runs his own business Nifa electronics since last 27 years in Ahmedabad city. Unlike others of his age, he is a techno-savy person. Nikhil wanted his 25 year old daughter Vidhi, who is pursuing Bachelor of Arts(Germanastik) from University Of Mumbai to be immunized. He attempted several times for the same on the government site, selfregistration.cowin.gov.in duringthe period of 20 days, but all in vain. Finally, he approached a ‘big shot’ from the government and that opened path for him. Nonetheless, this was not the end of the struggle and agony.

“I was fooled by CoWin all times as 47 doses were available and in no time vaccine centre was fully booked. I did not know what to do about this,” Nikhil told theombudsmanews.  

Ruling Party Sources at help
“I have been living in Punitnagar in Satellite area. After divergent efforts day and night, on Friday I used my ruling party source and came to know that I must try between 5:30 pm to 6 pm. And I could break ice for an AMC run school in Nobelnagar near ITI Kubernagar, about 20 kms from my house,” he added.  

Troubled journey
“Having been booked for vaccination was not end of the trouble. Tremors were not ready to leave me. To reach this vaccine centre I drew my car through slum areas, dirt ways, poorly hygiened locations. Even Google failed to show location and I had to use interpersonal skills to reach the venue. But somehow reached,” he said.

Applauding previous government
“It was really memorable experience after my vaccine appointment in Sanand which was 40 kms far from my home. After these experiences I really salute previous governments which did not have enough IT resources, no social media awareness campaigns still they took all help from NGOs and other government machineries to make India Polio free,” Nikhil said and added, “This govt is really least sensitive for public and their intentions are not fair. They don’t have good administrative skill.”

Problematic System
Same are the words of his daughter Vidhi, who says, “There is no doubt that the app and slot booking system is good but you also need to see that this is India where people have access to internet but are unaware of whole process. On Saturday when I went for vaccination. A 45 year old man standing in queue in front of me was baffled when he was asked for secret pin. He told the staff at the venue that he does not know much about the online booking.”

“And this is not just about people not knowing the internet and its usage, even educated people who know the process face glitches in the system. It shows 100 dose are available at the centre and when you try to book slot it says we are out of stock. And this happened every time. Finally I had to travel 20 km in rural area of my city to get vaccine. I don’t have a problem going in rural area, but how logical it is to reach at this far place? And after getting a slot also you have to wait for staff at the vaccination centre who try to fool you. Who is to blame now?, she posed a question.

What figures say
According to the figures released by the Gujarat State government, on Sunday, till evening as many as 1,83,070 people in the state were vaccinated and with this the total number of people immunised stands at 1,68,94,303.