South City’s Exorbitant Charges to Administer ‘Sputnik-V’ Vaccine

Karachi’s leading private hospital South City Hospital has collaborated with authorities to fight coronavirus pandemic and it has posted an exorbitant price list of vaccination and administration charges of ‘Sputnik V’ vaccine.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr Faisal Sultan stated that nearly 0.8 million doses of the covid-19 vaccine had been administered in Pakistan.

However, the government is still waiting for donations from foreign countries.

Earlier, South City Hospital posted the details of vaccination charges, which read that the cost of administering a single dose is Rs 8,634, whereas the cost of the double dose is fixed at Rs 17,268.

The visitors are requested to bring a copy of CNIC for verification and pregnant females are marked as ‘not eligible’.

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Moreover, journalist Omar Quraishi tweeted the details shared by the hospital.

However, he criticized how it was a complete mess after South City officials failed to entertain the demand.

Complete mess

South City Hospital in Karachi opened up vaccine registrations briefly this morning – for the Sputnik vaccine complete with prices – details of those seeking a vaccine were asked and stored and receipts issued – payment was to be made t at time of vaccination

— omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) April 2, 2021

Earlier, Omar was told that due to some technical error on the website, the registration was stopped.

Price was Rs 17,268 — Rs 12,268 plus Rs 5,000 for two doses — then the website was no longer registering people – I rang South City and was told that it was a glitch and that website should have been up and running because there were no vaccines in hand yet

— omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) April 2, 2021

Since the hospital was out of vaccine supplies, the already registered candidates had to follow the whole process again once the website went down.

I asked whether those who had been given appointments and even emailed receipts would have to go through the process all over again and was told that yes they would have to do that – all over again!

What a royal mess

— omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) April 2, 2021

Surprisingly, the website showed the message of ‘coming soon’ which became a matter of concern for many.

South City Hospital Karachi vaccination registration opened up briefly – many people already registered and even had appointments set up – now the website says “Coming Soon”

🤔🤔

— omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) April 2, 2021

Apart from South City Hospital, the journalist shared some of the designated places in Karachi and the status of Sputnik-V availability there.

Sputnik Vaccination update
(Karachi only)

South City – was registering but stopped for now

Hashmani’s – pre-registering

OMI — did start giving shots but stopped today at 1 pm

Chughtai Labs — website says can register – takes you to a WhatsApp number where it says not yet

— omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) April 2, 2021

However, the situation in India is different. The Indian government capped the administration price of covid-19 vaccines in private hospitals at Rs 350 per dose, which includes Rs.100 as service charges.