PETALING JAYA, June 27 — Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Rina Mohd Harun said today several ministries are in discussions to improve Covid-19 vaccination for pregnant women.
One of the ways being discussed was to allow mothers to be vaccinated as soon as they deliver their child at a hospital, she said.
“For now we will focus on those (pregnant women) 110,000 who have registered for vaccination, and actually 11,000 have already been given their appointments.
“I want to suggest for mothers who have delivered (at the hospital) to be allowed to receive vaccination so that they don’t have to go to vaccination centres.
“We want to prioritise caring for mothers who have delivered too, I will suggest this,” she told reporters after visiting the vaccination centre at Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre today.
When asked about the programme organised in collaboration with the Sunway Group, Rina said she hoped that more private organisations will come forward to support this initiative.
“The programme today is an example of a private collaboration between private sectors, like the other day we had Sime Darby Berhad, today we have Sunway Group.
“I welcome all contributions from corporate companies, not just in financial aspects, but also facilities that they have which they can contribute to control the pandemic and also to achieve herd immunity,” she said.
At the same time, Rina said there are ongoing discussions with relevant ministries regarding pregnant women as they are at higher risk compared to other adults.
“We need experts in this area.
“So at the ministry level, we have family centres, and my suggestion is that we will convert these centres into vaccination centres, for example in Seremban.
“The Nur Sejahtera clinics, we have 49, and I have suggested for them to convert into vaccination centres to specially to prioritise vaccination for babysitters,” she said.
Rina also raised concerns regarding the low registration rate for persons with disabilities, with just 280,000 among this group signed up.
“We hope that the vaccination rate for persons with disabilities will increase, we have a list of who are those who have not registered and we are monitoring.
“We will ensure that they will get vaccinated as soon as possible,” she said.
Some of the initiatives that are in the pipeline include preparing transportation services for the persons with disabilities to vaccination centres.
“We are talking to a few e-hailing companies, to help those who are not able to make it to the vaccination centre on their own.
“We will also look into making more drive-thru vaccination for persons with disabilities,” she said.
Currently there are close to 900,000 persons with disabilities in the country.
