KUALA LUMPUR – The Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia (APHM) today clarified that it is still in the process of submitting names of private healthcare frontliners to the Health Ministry for Covid-19 vaccinations, which is why some have been overlooked.
APHM president Datuk Dr Kuljit Singh said several frontliners and private hospitals may have been left out of the list for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.
In response to a complaint by Thomson Hospital chief executive Nadiah Wan on 1,000 names from her facility being omitted from the list, Dr Kuljit said APHM is rectifying the issue immediately.
“APHM is assisting the (private) hospitals and Health Ministry (MoH) as a gesture of good faith to compile the names,” he told The Vibes.
“We are doing it with the intention of helping everyone. This is not a big issue because at this stage, the vaccination for private healthcare workers has not started yet.”
Earlier today, Nadiah took to Twitter to vent her frustration after she learnt of her staff not being included in the list of phase one vaccine recipients.
“Today I received the worst news. Texted APHM CEO to check if our frontliners were submitted to MoH and they replied it ‘was inadvertently not forwarded’! I’m beyond angry and incredibly disappointed with APHM. We are a small hospital, true, but I like to think we have done our part.”
She later told Malaysiakini that the list the hospital sent to APHM contained 1,145 names.
Dr Kuljit admitted there are shortcomings on APHM’s part, but the matter could have been easily resolved if it was raised directly with the association instead of on social media.
“We will send the names, but the ministry will decide the order of priority. It is the ministry’s prerogative to decide.
“We are willing to cooperate with anyone willing to help us. We have a good relationship with the ministry. We only have good intentions towards our frontliners,” he said. – The Vibes, February 25, 2021
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