Sabahans want private hospitals, clinics roped in to fight Covid-19

 

Sabahans say they do not want another lockdown. (Bernama pic)

KOTA KINABALU: Sabahans want the health ministry to prioritise the involvement of private hospitals and clinics in rolling out Operation Surge Capacity in the state, according to a survey.

They say the private hospitals and clinics can play a role in managing and supporting asymptomatic Covid-19 patients.

Institute of Strategic Analysis and Policy Research (INSAP) deputy chairman Dr Pamela Yong said the 201 respondents in the survey were asked to rank five initiatives which the ministry should prioritise.

The initiatives were:

• Send more vaccines, particularly single-dose ones, to ramp up the immunisation rate;
• Deploy more health manpower from a pool of youth volunteers to the state’s vaccination centres (PPVs);
• Redeploy more medical equipment to Sabah hospitals from less infected areas in Malaysia;
• Rope in private hospitals and clinics and support Category 1 (no symptoms) and 2 (mild symptoms) cases to ease the workload of frontliners; and
• Reimpose a lockdown.

“In the straw poll, Sabahans ranked getting assistance from private hospitals and clinics as a top choice, followed by asking the health ministry to deliver more single-dose vaccines to the state,” Yong said.

She said Sabah had only been allocated 180,000 out of a promised 200,000 doses of CanSino single-dose vaccines to date.

“Single-dose vaccines are seen as critical to getting rural Sabah inhabitants vaccinated as it is cumbersome for these people to travel from the remote interior for a second dose,” she said.

Yong said redeployment of more medical equipment to Sabah hospitals from less infected areas in Malaysia was the third priority, followed by deployment of more health manpower from a pool of youth volunteers to Sabah.

“Deployment of more health manpower is not preferred as Sabahans fear that these volunteers may inadvertently arrive with the Delta variant since daily cases in the peninsula remain a national concern,” she said.

The lowest ranked initiative was reimposing a lockdown.

“The people are unanimous on opposing another lockdown. This is perhaps an instant reaction to being under enhanced movement control order (EMCO) and MCO for several straight months this year.”

Yong said as people in the rural areas rarely used the MySejahtera application because of poor broadband reception, the health ministry should use the network of village development and security committees (JKKKs) to spread the word on vaccination.

She also suggested that the ministry prioritise assets in districts with high economic value to ensure faster reopening of the economy and to save jobs. - FMT