ProtectHealth urges private medical practitioners to take part in booster shots efforts

by AMIR AZLAN / Graphic by MZUKRI

ProtectHealth urges private medical practitioners (PMP) to be involved in the booster dose inoculation efforts to provide greater accessibility and expand its reach nationwide.

“To date, over 3,699 PMPs have registered with ProtectHealth and 2,352 operate as Vaccination Centres (PPVs) in the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) and the National COVID-19 Immunisation Adolescent Programme (PICK Remaja).

The implementation of the booster dose will be led by PMP’s under the coordination of ProtectHealth.

Protecthealth CEO Datuk Dr Anas Alam Faizli said the organization through PMP will continue to assist and work together with the Ministry of Health (MOH) to speed up and maximise the implementation of the booster doses.

“As of 20 October 2021, ProtectHealth has successfully contributed 48% of the total vaccinations nationwide which is equivalent to 23,017,792 doses in PICK,” he said in the same statement.

The statement added PMPs who are interested to participate in PICK as a PPV, to register on the ProtectHealth website (www.protecthealth.com.my) while for PMPs who have already participated in the briefings, trainings and are ready, they can notify ProtectHealth through the Vaksin Control System (VCS) which can also be accessed on its website.

Yesterday Health Minister Khairy Jamaludin announced the implementation of the booster dose which commenced on Oct 13.

Last week the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) said that private general practitioners (GPs) are still in the dark about their participation in the rollout of booster shots and third vaccine doses.

Its president Koh Kar Chai said the arrangements for these shots have been cascaded down to the state health departments to manage.

He added that the state health departments are to decide which private GP clinics are picked to participate in this vaccination exercise but up to now, they have not engaged the private GPs who remain in the dark about the programme.

“There has been no planning and no coordination on the ground, at least not that we know of.

“We hope that all the GP clinics which had functioned as vaccination centre (PPV) GPs will be allowed to participate and not only a select few where the selection criteria were not made known to the GPs,” he said in a statement.

According to Koh, the GPs have been working closely with Protecthealth Corp Sdn Bhd on the onboarding of GPs in the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NCIP).

He noted there are about 1,635 private GP clinics that have functioned as PPV GPs, but they have not been informed by state health departments about giving the booster shots.