A 102-year-old retired Indian army officer Subramanian K N, received the first shot of the Covid vaccine at Columbia Asia Hospital, Hebbal, here on Monday afternoon. He was among more than 80 people to get inoculated in Columbia Asia Referral Hospital, Yeshwantpur, and Columbia Asia Hospital, Hebbal.
However, in many other hospitals in the city - government and private - vaccination never took off. In all, 938 in the city got vaccinated at 22 hospitals on day 1 of the vaccination drive for senior citizens' and people with health conditions.
The glitches in Co-WIN app forced many elderly to drop in at hospitals despite the fact that on-site registrations were not allowed as more and more crowds piled in in the hospital corridors
Two large government hospitals did not conduct vaccination on Monday owing to Co-WIN snag - Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute and Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital. Only two were vaccinated at CV Raman General Hospital.
At Jayanagar General Hospital 57 were vaccinated and the vaccination started only at 1.30 pm.
Sujith Babu, a sales executive, had secured a vaccination slot at Columbia Asia, Whitefield, by booking on the Co-WIN portal for his 68-year-old mother. "When I spoke to the hospital authorities in the afternoon, they said they had neither received the vaccine nor the Co-WIN id/password. Customer care manager seemed to be clueless and said he will folllow up. By 5 pm, they had received the vaccine, but there was a technical issue in logging into the Co-WIN platform, and said the vaccination might happen tomorrow," Babu said.
The 63-year-old Ganesh Kumar, a former CEO of a food company, had a similar experience but was in line to get vaccinated at Fortis Hospital, Bannerghatta Road, at 6.30 pm. The hospital authorities said it started the drive only at 5 pm after Co-WIN opened.
"We could register on the Co-WIN platform with the OTP but did not get a vaccination slot at any centre. I wish the government had done the necessary debugging of the portal. It is not working beyond a point. I couldn't take an appointment for the entire month of March, April and May. There is something drastically wrong," Kumar said.
As many as 61 were vaccinated at MS Ramaiah Hospital. Only 48 of these had registered and 13 had walked in. Meanwhile, 28 walk-in citizens were requested to come on Tuesday.
Dr Naresh Shetty, President, MS Ramaiah Hospital, said, "In all, 103 registered in the hospital today. Once the initial rush is over, we will call them."The hospital started vaccinating at 1.45 pm and closed at 6.45 pm. Portal hitches pertained till 5.15. It was smooth after that, maybe due to less load."
While Apollo Jayanagar vaccinated 62, Apollo Bannerghatta Road did not undertake vaccination.