Departmental negligence: Punjab’s inoculation drive breezes past beggars

Amidst rising infections, province lacks vaccination policy for panhandlers

LAHORE:

As the country’s most populous province grapples with the superspreader for the fourth time, one segment of the population that interacts with the rest on a daily basis is missing from inoculation drives entirely - beggars.

According to the Punjab Health Department’s spokesman Dr Yadullah, so far nearly 45 million people have been vaccinated in all 36 districts of the province. However, Yadullah did not provide any specific data on how many panhandlers have been vaccinated or whether they have been jabbed at all.

While the beggars are certainly in the police department’s mind, given the police’s recent crackdown to get them off the street, the same cannot be said for the province’s health department given the lack of effort or policy to get beggars into vaccination centers. A panhandler in the Gulberg area of Lahore, who refused to give his name, said, “the only visit I have gotten is from the police, no one has contacted me for the vaccine or told me where to get it from.” He was under the impression that the vaccine was not for those on the streets like him, stating that if the government asked him to get a jab, he would.

Similarly, Neeli, a transgender who asks for alms on the numerous traffic lights of the Garden Town area, said that no one had told him the process of getting the vaccine. It seems that the province’s recent initiative of door-to-door vaccination has failed to account for those without a door to knock on.

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“I have seen it on my mobile and TV that the virus-countering jabs are important, so if a team from the government came to me to administer one, I would gladly get it,” said Neeli.

The Primary and Secondary Healthcare department’s disregard for those who have a routine presence in the lives of Lahore’s residents, whether it is outside shopping areas’ car parking spots or at traffic lights, is further exacerbated by the fact that the department received vehicles courtesy of the World Health Organization (WHO) for exactly this reason. Credible sources told The Express Tribune that the WHO vehicles are being used to administer jabs to priority groups instead of beggars who pose a massive risk in transferring the virus to others.

The Express Tribune, reached out to the secretary of Punjab’s health department, to get comments and data regarding the matter but was met with unattended calls and unreplied to messages. Others from the department when contacted for comments had the same response to The Express Tribune’s questions that this policy matter was not under their domain. Khalid Sharif, an officer in the department’s Health Information and Service Delivery Unit, said that matters relating to immunisation were dealt with by another officer.

An official of the department, speaking under the condition of anonymity, told The Express Tribune that there was no restriction on beggars to go and get their vaccine from the various centers set up.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th, 2021.