The Ministry of Health(MOH) and SDMC must look into implementing more Vaccination Centres(PPVs district to ease congestions in the stadiums or large-scale PPVS, reduce waiting time for public and make it more convenient in terms of travelling time for them to get to these vaccination centres.
The Government should implement smaller PPVs based on a “Zone-System” to cover the population of that particular zone, and thus in a single district can have multiple PPVs to cover a wider population and reduce congestions. A suitable location, either a Common Hall, Balai Raya, Open Basketball Court or Dewan Masyarakat in each zone can be converted into a PPV that will cater for the people in that area.
The data of the people especially those covered in Phase 2 can be obtained through public hospital or public clinics records especially of those living in the area. Currently the Government Clinics already implements a system to cover a certain zone, and they can be put in-charge of handling that particular zone.
This is important especially when more and more vaccine supplies come in including the purpoted 1 million Sinovac vaccine purchased by the State Government and also the need for us to accelerate the vaccination rate to cover especially thw high-risk groups as soon as possible. Currently, it is not convenient for the government to expect elderly people, many with chronic diseases and comorbidities to travel far to the stadium, and to wait up to 2-3 hours for their vaccination.
I am concern such inconvenience may hinder more elderly who are of highest risk to develop severe symptoms or even face death from turning up to their vaccination appointments.
In setting up more PPVs, the federal government can work with the state government to mobilise more man power, volunteers by involving manpower from both federal and state public service, the private sector, last-year medical students, newly graduated medical doctors, university students and many other for medical & and non-medical work at these PPVs.
They should also set up mobile vaccination teams to go into elderly nursing homes and also direct vaccination for bed-ridden elderly and OKUs. Instead kf expecting them to come to the PPVs, these mobile teams can do directly ro them and give them proper protection as soon as possible
On top of that, the government must look into improving the Official JKJAV Hotline for those that intend to call up for any inquiries or also to make changes to appointment time and dates. Currently, it is very difficult for the public to call in and the connection constantly gets cut off. Due to that, many of the elderly who were unsure end up nor turning up for their appointment as they were unable to obtain required information from the hotline.
We are made to understand that such services were outsourced by the government to a third-party, but it is their responsibility to monitor to make sure quality is constantly being uphold.
That is why i urge the government to improve such services and implement a more targeted “Zone-System” for PPVs all around the country to help increase our vaccination rate and also make ir more convenient for the public to avoid dropout and wastage.
Kelvin Yii Lee Wuen
MP Bandar Kuching
