How a doctor gives the disadvantaged a shot at vaccination

 

Dr Wan Asim Adnan, Zalina’s husband, speaks to a wheelchair bound woman after registering her for vaccination. (Dr Zalina Ismail pic).

PETALING JAYA: It was a woman’s sense of civic duty that inspired the Kelantan-based Project Covid, a volunteer programme to get the disadvantaged vaccinated against Covid-19.

“It was something that popped up in my mind and grew,” Dr Zalina Ismail, a neurophysiologist, told FMT. “I discussed it with my husband and children and they said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

Zalina began to think of ways to contribute to the cause against the pandemic after volunteering at a vaccine distribution centre in Kota Bharu and seeing pictures of people delivering food aid to the needy.

She was troubled to hear that Kelantan recorded the lowest number of registrations for vaccination in late March. Only 11.8% of the state’s population had signed up.

She attributes this to a misplaced sense of altruism in people who think they should let others get inoculated first and also to the inability of some to get registered. In the latter group are people who are bedridden, paralysed or somehow do not have the resources to move around.

It was in her determination to rectify the situation that she thought of Project Covid, officially known as Community Outreach Vaccine Initiative for the Disadvantaged.

Under the project, Zalina and her band of 16 volunteers, who are medical students at a private college, reach out to high-risk groups, especially the immobile and their caregivers.

They explain to their targets the importance of getting vaccinated, they register them for vaccination and they take them to the vaccination centres.

But such a project would require funding and Zalina quipped that her 20-odd years of experience in academia had taught her that grants were hard to come by.

She needed RM10,740, so she put aside some of her salary and started crowdfunding. She reached the target amount in three days.

“I never expected such a response,” she said, adding that donations varied from children contributing RM1 to others shelling out RM1,000.

“It was unbelievable. Some even said they would donate vans for us to use to ferry the people.”

The initiative is currently focused in Kota Bharu, but Zalina is looking at the big picture. She believes her model can be adopted and adapted at various levels by others who want to do the same.

She said one did not need to be in a big organisation to affect change. “It’s in the small things,” she added. - FMT