Now, All Private Hospitals Can Operate as Covid-19 Vaccination Centres, Govt Tells States The Centre on Tuesday permitted all pr...

Now, All Private Hospitals Can Operate as Covid-19 Vaccination Centres, Govt Tells States

The Centre on Tuesday permitted all private hospitals to give Covid-19 vaccine if they adhere to the laid down norms and also asked the states and union territories to utilise the optimum capacity of private medical facilities empanelled under three categories.

The states and Union territories were also urged not to store, reserve, conserve or create a buffer stock of the COVID-19 vaccines, the Union Health ministry said in a statement, a day after the start of the second phase of India’s inoculation drive in which the coverage has been expanded to include everyone above 60 and those over 45 with specified co-morbidities.

At an official review meeting with the states, the Centre reiterated there is no shortage of the vaccines and hence, adequate vaccine doses should be allocated to the COVID Vaccination Centres(CVCs) “The central government has adequate stock and will provide the required vaccine doses to the states and UTs,” it said.

The Centre urged the states and the UTs to ensure adequate allocation of COVID-19 vaccines to all hospitals, government as well as private, for the entire duration for which vaccination sessions have been planned. It asked them to utilise the optimum capacity of all private hospitals empanelled under the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) and the state health insurance schemes to enable them to effectively function as CVCs.