COVID booster dose for adults: Many private hospitals keep away over price revision

The COVID-19 booster vaccination for 18-59-year-olds opened in private facilities on Sunday, but many large corporate hospital chains have decided not to offer the precaution shots in the beginning.

These hospitals are insisting that they will offer their old stock of vaccine doses at the price set previously, rather than the revised, lower rates, to avoid potentially huge losses.

On the government’s intervention, Bharat Biotech International Ltd and Serum Institute of India Ltd have both scaled down prices at which they will sell Covaxin and Covishield vaccines to private hospitals to Rs 225 per dose. Hospitals can also charge Rs 150 per dose as an administrative fee.

Covaxin had earlier been sold to hospitals at Rs 1,200 per dose and Covishield at Rs 600. People administered the doses in private vaccination centres were required to pay Rs 780 and around Rs 1,400 for the vaccines, respectively, inclusive of a 5 percent Goods and Services Tax (GST) and an administrative fee.

On April 9 and 10, Serum Institute of India urged hospitals to provide Covishield, the vaccine most used in India’s COVID-19 vaccination programme, at the revised price, saying they would compensate for holding usable stocks of the vaccine in the form of cost-free doses.

Many private hospitals are not convinced and want government assurance too.

Awaiting government clarification

Since July last year, when demand for vaccines started declining, pleas by private hospitals to the government to channel unused stock for exports have gone unheard, said  Girdhar J Gyani, director-general of the Association of Healthcare Providers of India.

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“We were forced to either provide it for free to people through corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities or to discard a large number of doses as they eventually expired. We still have some stock which we can use for boosters but these doses were procured at higher cost,” he said.

Gyani stressed that the government should issue a clarification on how the losses, if those doses are offered to people at revised rates, will be compensated.

“Logically we should charge the actual cost, but the public will demand shots at the new rates. Therefore, some of our major hospitals have decided to wait for clarification before starting vaccination at new rates,” he said.

Expect rise in footfalls

In a statement, Fortis Healthcare, one of the largest chains of hospitals, said that it welcomed the extension of precaution doses to younger age groups and expects an increase in footfall in the coming days.

“As of now, we have not received any communication from the authorities or the vaccine makers on the process for receiving and administering precaution doses to 18 plus, or on the new cost,” the group said. “The vaccine stock that we are currently holding was purchased at the previously approved government prices.”

It added that it will resume the vaccinations as soon as a clarification is received.

Price reduction may aid vaccination drive

Dr Harsh Mahajan, Co-Chair of the Health Services Committee at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), said reducing the price would help in overcoming vaccine hesitancy and accelerate the vaccination drive.

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“We welcome the comments of SII that expired doses would be taken back in the future and request the vaccine manufacturers to also take back the expired doses of previous batches which are not usable,” he said.

“They could provide fresh doses against the same and help private vaccination centres in their efforts at completion of the vaccination drive quickly.”

Some healthcare providers said the government should have opened booster doses to all adults much earlier.

“We would have liked the government to have taken this step much earlier, since the existing stock of vaccines across various private hospitals is about to expire very soon,” said Gautam Khanna, chair of the FICCI Health Services Committee and CEO of PD Hinduja Hospital.