The FPMPAM urges that strong and immediate action be taken against all those involved in the procurement, issue and sale of fraudulent vaccination and certification as reported in Berita Harian on 17.1.2022.
What they have committed is an unforgivable criminal act.
If a Registered Medical Practitioner (RMP) is found guilty, the offending doctor should be struck off the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) register and never be allowed to practise as a medical practitioner ever again.
Since the outset, our advice, to all RMPs participating in the National Immunisation Programme, has been to steer clear from irregularities, such as falsification of certification.
We have informed our doctors to turn away on the spot such unholy requests.
Everyone should go for proper vaccination via the proper channels to protect themselves, their families and the community. Any document or a certificate issued by a RMP has a serious legal responsibility attached.
It is now evidently clear that the MySejahtera certification process is not tamper-proof as has been claimed previously.
This recent revelation, plus other incidents that have been reported earlier, has a major impact on trust that people have on our vaccine certificate, both locally and internationally.
We hope the investigations will also be able to identify what segment of the Malaysian population are going for these fake certifications and to take appropriate action to address the problem. The majority of Malaysians do want to get proper vaccine protection and certification.
The government cannot allow this trust deficit to affect bona-fide providers and the millions of receivers of the vaccine.
An additional proposal is to add details of the place of vaccination and identification of the person administering the vaccination into the certificate.
This can be easily done for GP facilities, but for other PPVs where injections are not necessarily administered by the RMPs, the name of the person-in-charge should be included.
Dr Steven KW Chow is president of the Federation of Private Medical Practitioners’ Associations, Malaysia (FPMPAM).
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
