Gurgaon: A large number of people in the 18-44 age group started queuing up from as early as 6am on Wednesday outside 37 government session sites in the city for the walk-in Covid-19 vaccination drive.
Thousands turned up for the first dose of Covishield, even though only 120 slots were available at each site on a first-come, first-served basis.
This led to overcrowding and health officials had to seek police help to manage the crowds, leaving many exasperated.
With only 4,400 Covishield doses available, many had to return without getting jabs.
Some had arguments with cops managing the sites, while others said they should get tokens for Thursday’s session as they couldn’t get vaccinated despite waiting for hours.
Vaccinations at the government sites began at 10am, but recipients reached the session sites around 6am to get tokens for inoculation.
Police and civil defence teams reached the sites around 9am to manage the crowd and many were asked to as the slots were full at several centres by 10.20am.
The session sites at the primary health centres (PHCs) in sectors 10 and 31, Patel Nagar and Mullahera were the most crowded, with around 600 people turning up at each of them.
“I failed to get a token even though I reached the Sector 10 PHC at 6.30am.
This is not fair at all.
They can at least give us a token for the next vaccination session,” Rakesh Kumar, a resident of Sector 39.
Meanwhile, Dr Manish Rathi, deputy medical officer at Sector 10 Civil Hospital, said: “We had to ask for more policemen as we witnessed a huge crowd.
People were not willing to leave the premises and they started arguing with the staff about vaccination.
Things calmed down after a while.” A similar walk-in drive is planned on Thursday for Covaxin (six sites) and Covishield (31 sites) for the 18-44 age group.
But the plan is to carry out Covaxin sessions only for second dose recipients in this category, while Covishield will be given only to first dose recipients.
“We will be holding sessions from both 45-plus and 18-44 age groups on Thursday.
We will also have six Covaxin sites for second dose recipients in the 18-44 group,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, Gurgaon.
On Wednesday, 11,912 people in the 18-44 age group got inoculated in the city.
In the 45-plus category, 4,129 people took the shots.
As many as 238 healthcare workers and 919 frontline workers were also vaccinated.