Coronavirus: why has the city incorporated seven private providers to vaccinate people over 80?

With the start of the stage of vaccination of the elderly, The City has allowed this priority group with certain coverage plans to receive the doses through their suppliers usual. For this, the local Ministry of Health designated as the Vaccination Center against SARS-CoV-2 to Italian, German and British hospitals, Cemic, the sanatorium of Güemes (for affiliates of its Hominis plan and the social service of the Union of Hotel and Gastronomy Workers of the Argentine Republic (Osuthgra)), the social work of commercial employees (Osecac) and Obra Social of the city of Buenos Aires. This is about 9,900 units of the Covishield vaccine out of the 40,000 that the Nation has assigned to the jurisdiction. In other words, one in four of these doses. This distribution to suppliers led to a criminal complaint against the City to “privatize” the vaccination against Covid-19.

From the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health, in charge of Fernán Quiros, have another explanation: “We are opening the possibility for prepaid and social work to participate in the vaccination campaign. So far, they’ve accepted the seven that appear on the page so older people know how to access shifts. An agreement is signed with each of them by which the City undertakes to provide the vaccines and, on the provider’s side, there is a person responsible for their storage, transfer and immediate start of application to its members according to the requirements. vaccination stages defined by the national government. “

This agreement includes, as detailed, the obligation to remit the payroll of beneficiaries to the Ministry of Health. This data, at the same time, is used to define the proportion with which the doses will be allocated to each supplier with each shipment that the district receives from the National Ministry of Health.

“The application protocol is the same for all citizens of Buenos Aires, including the observation 30 minutes after administration of the doses. In terms of time, they must not delay the start of vaccination as soon as they receive the doses, ”continued a Quirós employee. “They were just sent to them today,” he said.

Vaccination of over 80s in the district began yesterday. Between yesterday and today, in the 180 vaccinator posts distributed in 29 out-of-hospital posts, 9,018 doses of the first vaccination program were applied Covishield (AstraZeneca / Oxford), plus 511 in nursing homes yesterday. With the seven providers, as explained by Health, 45 other positions are incorporated. In each of them, about 28 people are vaccinated in one day.

“This allows us to expand the options for the vaccine to reach the population. The vaccination had to be as fast and accessible as possible because the doses are delivered to us, ”added the official spokesperson of this media.

He also said that logistics expenses are the responsibility of the City and that the shifts allocated through these seven suppliers are in addition to the 5,000 that are allocated by the public system.

“If we receive [de Nación] a percentage of the vaccines that the City needs, the providers with whom an agreement has been signed receive the same proportion according to the payroll that they have presented, ”he said.

Lawyer Natalia Salvo has asked the federal court to investigate the city’s decision to incorporate seven private sector and social service providers into the district’s immunization plan by delivering doses to its members.

The accusation is against the head of government of Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, and Quirós, for the crime of breach of the duties of a public official. He will investigate Federal Tribunal No. 4, headed by Judge Ariel Lijo.

With this, for Salvo, the State of Buenos Aires would grant privileges to affiliates of prepaid and social works to access the vaccine to the rest of the population.

“One thing is to accept cooperation with an entity, to use its facilities and to carry out vaccination there, as happens in the province of Buenos Aires, and another thing is to make an agreement with social works. and prepaid and to deliver the vaccines. to administer them to their affiliates. These are two very different things, “the lawyer told the Telam Agency.

At the complaint, they joined The critics of the legislators of Buenos Aires of the Frente de Todos and of the deputy of Buenos Aires of the PTS on the left front, Myriam Bregman.

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