KUALA LUMPUR, April 12 — The government has invited private hospitals to participate in the second and third phases of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) by providing their facilities as vaccination sites.
Health Minister Dr Adham Baba said private hospitals — numbering at 203 nationwide — who wish to take part in the public vaccine coronavirus rollout can register with ProtectHealth Corporation, a wholly-owned company under the Ministry of Health (MOH), from today.
According to ProtectHealth’s website, private hospitals will receive payment from ProtectHealth at RM14 per dose administered. Private health care providers will also be provided training for vaccination.
“Private hospitals are being involved to take into account their suggestions as they did not want to be excluded from helping to quickly achieve the target of minimum 80 per cent population coverage in Malaysia for Covid-19 immunisation,” Dr Adham said in a statement.
“Therefore, the government will give free vaccines to private hospitals to maximise the public’s access to vaccination.”
The health minister also announced that 2,304 private general practitioners (GPs) have registered to participate as vaccinators for PICK as of yesterday. There are some 7,000 GPs nationwide.
“With this initiative, residents of Malaysia can get their jabs from government facilities or from the private sector (GPs or private hospitals). Vaccine recipients will be informed through MySejahtera on their PPV (vaccination site).”
According to ProtectHealth, which is also in charge of registering GPs as vaccinators in the public vaccination programme, GPs will receive from ProtectHealth a payment of RM14 per dose administered. Payment will be RM45 per hour for work in mass vaccination sites.
Phase Two of the national Covid-19 vaccination programme targeting the elderly and people with comorbidities is due to start on April 19.
Both private hospitals and GPs have called for their own separate Covid-19 inoculation programmes with supplies procured independently from the government. However, Vaccine Minister Khairy Jamaluddin told CodeBlue last month that a private vaccine rollout could probably start only in the second half of the year due to limited global supply.
