LAHORE: The Punjab government has decided to establish Covid vaccination centres in all 27 teaching hospitals of the province in order to vaccinate a target population of 67m by the end of 2021.

The centres will remain open 24 hours to administer vaccines to people above 18. The decision was made in the light of the recommendations of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC).

The Punjab Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education Department issued a notification on Friday with instructions to all vice chancellors, principals and medical superintendents of the teaching institutions to establish vaccination centres.

In Lahore, the centres will be established at 10 teaching institutions namely Mayo Hospital, Jinnah Hospital, Services Hospital, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Lahore General Hospital, Government Teaching Hospital Shahdara, Mian Munshi Hospital, Government Mozang Teaching Hospital, Government Nawaz Sharif Yakki Gate Hospital and Kot Khwaja Saeed Hospital.

The teaching hospitals of the other cities are Benazir Bhutto Hospital and Holy Family Hospital in Rawalpindi, Civil Hospital Bahawalpur, Allied Hospital, DHQ Hospital and General Hospital, G.M Abad in Faisalabad, Aziz Bhatti Shaheed Hospital, Gujrat, DHQ teaching hospitals in Sahiwal, DG Khan, Sargodha, Rawalpindi and Gujranwala, Nishtar Hospital, Multan, Bahawalpur Victoria Hospital, Allama Iqbal Memorial Teaching Hospital Sialkot, Haji Abdul Qayyum Hospital Sahiwal and Shaikh Zayed Hospital, RY Khan.

The health department warned the heads of the hospitals against denial of vaccination to the visitors and long waiting time.

The medical superintendents will be responsible to identify suitable sites for vaccination, having seating arrangements, fans/ventilation, drinking water and parking for the people. They are directed to deploy staff to facilitate the people requiring Covid vaccines and ensure implementation of the standard operation procedures (SOPs).

The vaccination centres at the hospitals will start functioning from June 7.

The health department has appointed KEMU former VC Prof Dr Asad Aslam as in-charge of all vaccination centres.

Earlier, the Punjab government was providing the vaccination facility at 346 centres in the province. However, there were reports that Punjab was far behind in achieving the target of vaccinating its 67m population.

The official data in this respect had indicated that it was administering vaccines to an average 51,000 people daily against the 420,000 individuals eligible to get jabs every day.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2021