Only about 2,500 general practitioners (GPs) have signed up for the Covid-19 vaccination exercise, says Khairy Jamaluddin.
He said it was not the government that did not want to rope in more private medical practitioners to ramp up the vaccination process, but not all wanted to participate.
“To be part of the vaccination process requires some preparation on the part of the GP clinics. Not all want to participate. Only a few thousand have signed up with ProtectHealth for this,” he said on Monday (May 31).
Khairy, who is National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme coordinating minister, said 2,467 private medical practitioners had registered to date and of those, a total of 1,665 had undergone training.
Appointment letters have already been issued to 1,482 private clinics and hospitals.
“Training is required for the vaccination. The GPs are saying that vaccinations are routine for them, but this is Covid-19 vaccination, and it is different.
“We have to give basic training for storage, for administering the vaccine which is a little bit different as it uses a special syringe,” he explained.
Khairy was asked to comment on why not all of the 7,000 members of the Federation of Private Medical Practitioners Association Malaysia had been roped in to help with mass vaccinations for the public. – The Star