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| Photo: AA |
My mum took the first dose of her Covid-19 jab yesteday, it was the AstraZeneca vaccine administered at a primary health care centre. This first phase of vaccinations covers different groups of people including healthcare workers and all emergency responders, security agencies, the judiciary, teachers and folks aged 70 years and above.
There was an information poster on the gate at the entrance
to the health centre with information about all eligible groups and procedure
for getting the shot. A generous piece of real estate on the poster was reserved
for an image of the local government chairman for that area; perhaps a reminder
of his benevolence for delivering the vaccine to his propitious constituents.
The entire process from arrival to getting the actual jab took
a little over an hour and this happened with a very light influx of people. The
entrance to the health centre was manned by individuals who I would guess were
local government employees but whose demeanour came off as that of touts aka
area boys. I witnessed them providing
assurances and giving out their numbers to some ineligible persons present,
promising to eventually bring them in.
Organisation beyond the gate and entrance holding area was
not any better as my octogenarian mum was kept waiting without the established
order being strictly maintained and of course the constant streaming in of
‘VIP’ queue circumventers made the
process that much more cumbersome.
Outside the no mask no entry policy, no hand sanitizers were
provided at any stage of the entire process. And when I inquired as to why the
process took so long, I was made to understand that the internet was required
to register participants and of course with the notorious internet networks,
registration could take a while.
It is not my intention to belittle the efforts of the
government in providing its citizens with the Covid-19 vaccine but it’s
astonishing how our systems at the most basic levels are usually representative
of what applies in higher levels. I shudder at what will happen at this particular
centre in subsequent phases with probably a larger net of participants.
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