KUALA LUMPUR, May 28 — The Federation of Private Medical Practitioners’ Association Malaysia (FPMPAM) has called for Covid-19 mass vaccination for the public to be held at all public and private clinics and hospitals in the country.
Association president Dr Steven Chow said there is no need for any high-tech apps to do this or for “supersport-style” vaccine centres to be set up.
“This is not a super-sport. There are no super prizes to be won but only lives to be saved,” he said in a statement issued today.
“We don’t need apps that do no talk to one another. We need people to go to their doctors and have their jabs on the spot,” he added.
He said there are 7,000 general practitioners (GPs) and thousands of Klinik Kesihatan that can easily vaccinate up to 50 patients daily and if done with private hospitals, a large number of people can be vaccinated in a very short time.
He said all the government needed to do was to deliver the vaccines to all of these locations and this can be achieved through existing pharmaceutical distributors with the capability and capacity to do so.
“There is no need to have CKAPS to inspect and to approve GP clinics for vaccination,” he said, referring to the Private Medical Practice Division of the Health Ministry.
He pointed out that all GP clinics are already registered under the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Act (PHFSA).
“GPs have been giving vaccines long before some of our ministers were born,” he said.
He said the red tape surrounding the dispensing of the Covid-19 vaccines must be removed to expedite the vaccination rollout.
He used the rollout in United States and United Kingdom as examples of how the process could be expedited without a computerised system.
“The National Health Service rolled it out to all their GPs, they just give a card after vaccination and they have done it and succeeded,” he said.
He said there was no necessity to have a digitalised system that is not able to integrate and apps that do not work or synchronise with each other.
By allowing all Klinik Kesihatan, GPs and hospitals to vaccinate people, he said it would be more convenient to the patients especially the elderly.
He said some elderly patients have complained of being given appointments at vaccination centres located far from their homes leading to them spending long hours travelling, locating the place and travelling back.
“This is not fair, not correct and not cost-efficient. It is a sign of a broken system,” he said.
Chow said the patients should be allowed to see the doctor nearest to their homes, get assessed, vaccinated and have the information immediately updated into their MySejahtera.
He called on the government to expedite the vaccination process and cut the red tape immediately as the number of cases is spiralling out of control.
He said the actual number of daily new cases is clearly more than the confirmed above 7,000 cases per day because, for every confirmed case, there are three to 10 undetected cases in the community.
“We are dealing with tens of thousands of new infections daily,” he said.
He reminded Putrajaya that the mortuaries are overflowing and now containers have been commissioned to keep the bodies of the deceased.
“Yet, we have ministers mulling out ideas of super vaccine centres, mobile vaccine trucks and more prickly apps and platforms that do not work when needed,” he said.
