Health Ministry mulls action against parents taking kids to public places

PUTRAJAYA (Bernama): Parents and guardians who insist on bringing their young children to public places without a valid reason are likely to face legal action, says Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said the Health Ministry and the National Security Council (NSC) would hold a discussion tomorrow on the implementation of enforcement against those stubborn parents.

Currently, the authorities are still using the soft approach of advising parents.

"We will discuss how we can enforce (action) against parents who insist on taking their young children to public places and hospitals without having prior appointment, ” he said at the daily media briefing on Monday (May 18).

Dr Noor Hisham was responding to a reporter who asked if the ministry would issue any directives regarding the action of parents who took their children to public places during the conditional Movement Control Order (MCO) period.

He also said the level of compliance with the standard operating procedures (SOP) still needed to be improved despite the lower number of new positive cases of Covid-19 during the two weeks of conditional MCO.

He said the SOP-compliance among the people was very important before the implementation of an exit strategy could be considered.

"We are not even discussing the exit strategy at this time. We are just giving the conditional MCO some leeway.

"If we obey (SOP) and positive new cases continue to be maintained at two digits, we might consider whether we need an exit strategy, ” he said. – Bernama