Permission for Door-to-Door vaccination for the elderly, won’t wait for centers permission we’ll allow you. [Bombay High Court to BMC]
The divisional bench of the Bombay High Court comprising of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G S Kulkarni directed to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation [BMC] to inform the court if they are willing to conduct door-to-door vaccination of the elderly after obtaining relevant consent of the citizens or their relatives on the consequences of vaccination.
This came after a petition filed by advocate Dhruti Kapadia, in her petition she pointed out that, there are many citizens out there who are bedridden and cannot go to the vaccination center to get the much-needed jab.
During the session, Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh informed the court that one of the requirements of a vaccination camp was the 30-minute observation of beneficiaries for any adverse events following immunization (AEFI) and any other support. However, the court was no convinced with this matter and asked how many cases of emergency had arisen after taking a vaccination.
The bench asked, “This is concerning people, who cannot come out. They cannot even be brought down. Should they not have vaccine only because they cannot be brought out?”
Additional solicitor general Anil Singh informed the court that there was an expert committee appointed for examining the proposal of door-to-door vaccination for elderly and disabled citizens. The committee proposed strategies, which included community-based outreach sessions (COS) will be organized to provide Covid-19 vaccines to a defined population.
The bench said, “They may be experts in their field, but they seem to have zero knowledge of the ground reality." The bench also asked, “With proper consideration of risk, if they are willing to do it, then why not we let them do it?”
On this matter, the Bombay High Court asked the Municipal Commissioner to inform them by Thursday, if they can implement such a policy for people above 75 years, differently-abled, and bedridden.
The bench also said it will grant permission for door-to-door vaccination, even if the Centre has no such door-to-door vaccination policy till now.