High-risk work: Funeral workers want vaccine priority

 

As the Covid-19 death rate spikes, funeral workers are calling on the government to give them vaccination priority to reduce the risk of them contracting the disease while handling bodies.

The owner of Peace 21 Funeral Services, who only wanted to be known as Chris, told Malaysiakini she emailed the Health Ministry and the Special Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) several times about this issue but has not received a reply.

“I have also called the JKJAV and National Security Council (NSC) hotline to ask about this, but I have to wait for at least 30 people. Sometimes there are even 50 to 60 people on the call waiting list.

“I waited 40 minutes before and eventually gave up the call. The NSC hotline never picks up my calls,” rued Chris, who runs her funeral parlour in Kepong, Kuala Lumpur.

She also sought the help of Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng, who she said also received no response from the authorities after his inquiry.

She also registered with the SELangkah immunisation programme, which was launched by the Selangor government to encourage employers to buy Covid-19 vaccines for their workers.

Only 10 sets of PPE left

The 31-year-old has been in the deathcare industry for over 10 years, specialising in makeup and embalming.

Peace 21, a small funeral service provider with two employees, was set up by her in 2013.

According to Chris, she only has 10 sets of personal protective equipment (PPE) left and has to outsource some of the cases she receives to other companies.

“A set of basic PPE will cost us about RM50. We bought about 100 sets last April but 35 of them were transferred to other funeral service providers.

“Now the prices are raised and supply is tight. We can only order them from overseas,” she said.

Peace 21 has dealt with 16 bodies of Covid-19 patients since March.

When contacted, the owner of Graceland Funeral Services in Kuala Lumpur, who asked to be identified only as Yap, agreed that funeral workers faced a higher risk, compared with those in the other industries.

“We are not considered as frontliners. How could we get our jab (earlier)? Now, all of the economic sectors are allowed to operate, all of the people are facing risks, but our risks are higher, since we have to handle the bodies and be in contact with their family members, who might be Covid-19 patients.

“For us, we cannot reject any customer. To be honest, we are quite worried when we receive any Covid-19-related cases,” Yap said.

While handling Covid-19-related bodies is nerve-wracking enough, he said the more worrisome situation is if some family members conceal their Covid-19 status to attend the last rites of the deceased.

Since Graceland Funeral Services is located in the part of Cheras that falls in Kuala Lumpur, Yap cannot buy vaccines for his employees through the SELangkah initiative, like Peace 21 can.

He said he was also not aware of any channel for employers to apply for priority shots for their workers.

The company has 14 staff and seven of them are migrant workers. Yap said 80 percent of his staff are frontline workers who need to handle the remains and face mourners.

500 frontliners in Nirvana Group

Similarly, Nirvana Care general manager (sales and service) Teh Khai Lin told Malaysiakini that the listed company is asking the authorities if funeral workers can get the vaccine earlier.

“This is because we have to get in contact with the people and the remains, the risks we face are similar to medical personnel.”

Currently, Nirvana Care is collecting feedback from its staff before purchasing vaccines under the SELangkah programme.

According to Teh, Nirvana Group has more than 1,000 workers across the country while at least 500 of them are frontline workers in the Klang Valley.

“Actually the back-end workers who work from the office need the vaccine too as the frontline workers will come to the office to pass some documents and they will be in contact with each other as well.”

From March to December 2020, Nirvana handled 12 funerals for Covid-19 related deaths. From January to April 2021, however, Teh said there were 55 such cases.

That number shot up this month. In May 2021, the company has already handled 66 such cases. That figure is close to the previous 16 months combined.

According to the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP), the first phase of administering the vaccine from February until April involved 500,000 frontliners, including health workers, parliamentarians and state assemblypersons, as well as members of the Armed Forces, Fire and Rescue Department, police, Rela, Prisons Department, Welfare Services Department and other such essential services.

The second phase of the NIP, which is from April to August, involves 9.4 million senior citizens, the disabled, teachers and national athletes. The third phase, which is scheduled for May until February 2022 will involve those aged 18 and above as well as non-citizens, with a target of 13.7 million or more.

However, the vaccination programme has drawn critics who say it suffers from a slow rollout. - Mkini