Not feasible to stop private clinic vaccination appointments

The decision by the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) to stop the vaccination appointments at 741 private clinics and ambulatory care centres in Selangor is not feasible and lacks prudence.

Even Health Director General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah had said the decision to stop administering vaccines at private clinics was done contrary to his advice. The CITF has to explain the sudden stop of the policy.

The model of using General Practitioners (GP) has proven to be successful and the use of private clinics has been proven to be cost effective and safe. Mega vaccine dispensing centres (PPVs) have already shown to create more risks of cluster breakouts.

The country needs to continue with the policy of using some 8,000 private GPs nationwide for the final stretch towards achieving the goal of fully vaccinating 80% of the adult population by the end of October in the ongoing National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP).

We are not facing vaccine shortages, so why do we shut down the usage of private clinics?

We hope the new administration that is coming in will reverse this policy soon.

Chris Daniel Wong

MCA Youth Wilayah Persekutuan Vice Chairman