Rope in more GPs for vaccinations, says MMA

 

The national immunisation programme is expected to begin sometime in February. (AP pic)

PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Medical Association has called on the government to increase the participation of general practitioners (GPs) to speed-up the proposed national vaccination programme.

MMA president Dr Subramaniam Muniandy said there were 7,000 trained doctors in private practice with clinics well-distributed and close to the community in both urban and rural areas in the country.

“Regrettably, they have been underutilised in managing the pandemic,” he said, adding that they have been vaccinating the public for more than six decades.

“Private GPs have been vaccinating the public since pre-independence.”

In response to a minister’s statement that the projected number of private doctors involved in vaccinations “is not going to be very high”, Subramaniam said private doctors were well positioned to help in the vaccination campaign, being located across the country and in highly-populated areas.

Many patients managed by private doctors also had other illnesses, qualifying them to receive vaccines under current vaccination plans. Involving private doctors would help reduce traffic at government vaccination sites, he said.

He said private clinics were also currently involved in mass Covid-19 screenings of foreign workers and the community where the clinics are located.

The government should give priority to locations with dense populations as they carry higher risk of Covid-19 transmissions, he said. As many private clinics are located in such areas, the general public would have faster and more convenient access to vaccines.

Science, technology and innovation minister Khairy Jamaluddin was quoted as saying yesterday that the projected rate of vaccinations at private clinics “is not going to be very high”. He said discussions must be held to determine the vaccination capacity of GPs.

Khairy said the government plans to recruit more than 10,000 vaccination staff, such as GPs, pharmacists, nurses, medical students and community volunteers in the national Covid-19 immunisation programme. - FMT