GP clinics to be roped in for jabs

PETALING JAYA: To rev up the pace of Covid-19 vaccinations in the country, 500 general practitioner (GP) clinics will be roped in beginning June 15, and more mega vaccination centres will be opened, says Khairy Jamaluddin.

The coordinating minister for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme said a total of 1,000 GP clinics would be made vaccination centres by June 30.

“I estimate that GPs and private hospital vaccination centres can contribute to administering 40,000 doses a day by June 30.

“This is our aim for the private vaccination centres, subject to the availability of vaccine supply, ” he told reporters after visiting the country’s first mega vaccination centre at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (Mitec) yesterday.

Khairy said that before this, GPs were not involved in the vaccination programme as there was less vaccine supply.

However, he said with the increase of vaccine supply in the country, the government wanted to make it easier for clinics and private hospitals to administer the vaccines for free through the programme.

“The government will pay the clinics and the private hospitals. They only need to administer the vaccines, ” he said, adding that currently, 2,500 GP clinics had registered to be involved in the programme.

Of the 2,500 GPs, he said 1,800 GPs had already attended the onboarding programme to administer the vaccines.

“Although vaccinations are considered routine for GPs, Covid-19 vaccinations are a bit different from normal vaccines due to their (cold) storage system.

“So, although we want to involve more GPs, they must first attend the onboarding training programme with ProtectHealth Corporation Sdn Bhd, ” he said

ProtectHealth is the Health Ministry-appointed implementer of private medical practitioner participation in the programme.

ProtectHealth had previously noted that only vaccine registration via the MySejahtera app was needed and those who had registered needed to wait for the appointment notification to be pushed to their app.

It had also stated that those who had registered would be informed, via MySejahtera, of their vaccination centre – whether under the Health Ministry or a private practitioner.

The registration for GPs to become a vaccination centre, said Khairy, would also be made much easier, in which the pre-approval visit by the Health Ministry would now no longer be required.

Instead, he said that the observation visit would now only be made after the centre was up and running.

Khairy also said that more mega vaccination centres would be added in the Klang Valley from June 7.

“In Selangor, we will increase to three centres – the Mines Convention Centre, UITM Puncak Alam and the Setia City Convention Centre.

“In Kuala Lumpur, we will add two more – the KLCC Convention Centre and the outdoors of the Bukit Jalil Stadium, ” he said, adding that he would also be going to Penang and Johor next week to discuss the opening of more mega centres in those states.

With the opening of Mitec as a mega vaccination centre today, Khairy said the target was for it to accommodate over 6,000 people per day.

“But we start with 2,000 first because we are still in Phase Two of vaccinations for the elderly in Kuala Lumpur.

“We do not want overcrowding to happen tomorrow (today). In a week’s time, when the situation is stabilised, then we will look into increasing the capacity in Mitec, ” he said.

Khairy said the government would also be rolling out drive-through vaccination centres following the success of a pilot project at Universiti Sains Malaysia in Kubang Kerian, adding that guidelines were currently still being set as there needed to be an observation period for those inoculated.