KUALA LUMPUR, June 4, 2021: The Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia (Huazong) has called on the government to ensure that charges of vaccines to be administered by private hospitals under the vaccine dispensing centres (PPVs) program are reasonable and affordable.
Its President, Tan Sri T.C Goh also proposed the government to consider giving special allowances or tax incentives to private hospitals, so that they could administer vaccines to the public at much lower charges.
He proposed this while welcoming clarification by National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Coordinating Minister Khairy Jamaluddin that the government is not monopolizing the vaccines or restricting any state’s intentions to procure its own vaccines and may even facilitate the effort.
Goh hopes such an open policy would accelerate our national vaccination program and achieve the goal of 80% herd immunity, soonest.
He added that, the federal government and the state governments together with the private hospitals should adopt a well-coordinated and unified policy for the PPVs program, in order to avoid any confusions or disputes.
He also concurred with Khairy on the two conditions for vaccine procurement i.e. i). if states want to purchase the same brands of vaccines which the federal government is acquiring i.e Pfizer, Sinovac and AstraZeneca, they must let the federal government acquire the said vaccines first; ii). If states want to take in other brands of vaccines, they can do so, as long as they are registered with the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA).
Goh further said, with some states started to acquire vaccines for the people, some private businesses too expressed their intention to provide vaccination for their employees, on their own expenses, and the private hospitals too are keen to acquire vaccines on their own, such efforts should be better assisted and coordinated by the government, in order to expedite the national immunization program.
Meanwhile, Huazong presented a 10-point proposal on the national Covid-19 vaccination program, as follows:
1. Urging all Malaysians to actively come forward to register for vaccination, and to accept whatever brands of vaccines which are made available.
2. Urging the government to pay serious attention to tackle the rampant, wasteful trend of absenteeism among those who have registered for vaccination.
3. Government to expedite procurement of more vaccines including the China-produced CanSino vaccine and Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, once they are approved.
4. Urging the government to set up more PPVs to accelerate the National Covid-19 Immunisation Program (PICK).
5. Government to give top priority to accelerate implementation of PICK to provide free vaccination to the people.
6. Welcome and support participation of state governments and private sector, private hospitals included, in PICK, so as to achieve the target of 80% herd immunity nationwide, soonest.
7. Besides providing free vaccination to the people, the government must also ensure that private hospitals are imposing reasonable and affordable charges for Covid-19 test and vaccination.
8. Proposing the government to give special allowances or tax incentives to private hospitals, and to put in place proper monitoring to ensure reasonable charges for administering of vaccines to the public.
9. Proposing the government to establish the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) at every state, so as to ensure better coordination between federal government and state governments and private hospitals, towards accelerating vaccination programs in every region.
10. Government to ensure full transparency in the deployment of the national trust fund for the purchase of Covid-19 vaccines, to make sure that every single sen spent is justifiable and accounted for.- or/BNN
