The Association of Private Hospital Malaysia (APHM) president Dr Kuljit Singh said that private hospitals are keen to work together with the Health Ministry to register public and private patients in private hospitals for the National Covid-19 Vaccine Immunisation Programme.
This came after Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said yesterday that the government would most likely reconsider the registration policy if the sign-up rate for Covid-19 vaccination is not satisfactory by July.
In response, Kuljit (above) said his group was in communication with the Special Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine Supply to have the finer details sorted out, and they had proposed to start almost immediately.
"We want to increase the options for the public and private patients to register manually with the assistance of our staff at our private hospitals into the system.
"This would be for the free vaccines provided by the government.
"Private hospitals are in discussion to confirm our commitment to vaccinate the public using the vaccines provided by the government," he said in a statement today.
He added that private hospitals in Malaysia number about 210, with 152 of them members of the APHM, and that they are all strategically situated throughout the country, including the main towns in Sabah and Sarawak.
"In 2018, there were 1.1 million admissions into private hospitals and 3.8 million out-patient visitations.
"We believe with these numbers, our effort in getting more citizens and other residents in this country registered for the vaccine will enhance the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme," he said, adding that the final site of vaccination would be determined by the MySejahtera app and not necessarily at the place of registration.
"Our approach will also be to educate the public on the benefits of vaccination and the importance of having herd immunity at the earliest time which will allow the economy to recover.
"APHM is also hopeful that with this effort of assisting patients in private hospitals with the vaccination programme, we could also commence the private vaccination programme parallelly for economic frontliners as soon as the availability of vaccines is attained," he said.
Yesterday, Khairy said an assessment would be done in July as currently, the level of demand is more than supply.
“The supply schedule is still gradual right now. The delivery (of vaccines) is set to increase tremendously in July.
“If we see supply overtake demand, and that will start around July and August when we have millions of doses coming in monthly, then we will consider some further options to increase the registration,” he told a press conference conducted jointly with Health Minister Dr Adham Baba.
In an update yesterday, the Health Ministry confirmed that the commencement date for Phase 2 of the vaccination is April 19 for the states of Kedah, Malacca, Penang, Pahang, Sabah, Sarawak, Terengganu and WP Labuan. Other states will start four days later.
The target group, namely the elderly, people with disabilities and patients with chronic diseases who have registered for the vaccine have started receiving notifications of appointment dates through MySejahtera starting yesterday ( April 5).
A notification will be sent at least 14 days before the appointment date with reminders via SMS and phone calls will be made three days before and one day before the appointment.
Those who have agreed to the appointment date are required to be present to avoid wastage of vaccines that have been removed from storage, said the ministry.
The breakdown of Phase 2 registrations as of April 4 is as follows:
Senior citizens: 1,229,855
Persons with disabilities: 115,249
Individuals with comorbidities: 1,741,935
The government aims to vaccinate 9.4 million people during the second phase, meaning the 3.1 million that have signed up for Phase 2 so far made up only one-third of the target.
The overall number of registrations is no better. As of April 4, only 7.4 million people have registered for vaccination, which is 32.6 percent of Malaysia's adult population.
The country aims to vaccinate at least 23.6 million people in its vaccination programme. - Mkini
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