TWO Penang private hospitals – Island Hospital and Lam Wah Ee Hospital – began vaccinating frontliners of their respective hospitals today to help speed up the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.
State Health Department director Datuk Dr Asmayani Khalib said the two private hospitals would vaccinate 6,000 frontliners from the private hospitals in the state from today.
“I would like to thank the private sector for their strong cooperation with the government.
“Island Hospital and Lam Wah Ee are the two private hospitals in Penang approved by the Federal Government to be the vaccination centres.
“They start off by vaccinating 90 of their own frontliners each. More of their staff and other frontliners from private hospitals will be vaccinated from tomorrow.
“At present, we have 19 vaccination centres in Penang. They are at six hospitals and 13 health clinics. The addition of Island Hospital and Lam Wah Ee Hospital is to to accelerate the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme,” Dr Asmayani said after accompanying Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow on a tour of the vaccination centre at Island Hospital.
As at 12am today, 391,573 people or approximately 28.3 percent of Penang’s population have registered for the vaccination programme.
“We want to encourage more people to come forward to register for the vaccines. It is safe. We want to achieve a herd immunity,” Dr Asmayani added.
She said the first phase of vaccinating 31,000 frontliners in the state was expected to be completed by end of April after all have received their second shot of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Chow commended both Island Hospital and Lam Wah Ee Hospital for playing their role in speeding up the vaccination process.
“I’m happy with the smooth operation. And I encourage more Penangites to get vaccinated to protect themselves and others,” he said.
Island Hospital and Lam Wah Ee Hospital will vaccinate 300 frontliners each tomorrow, and the number of frontliners may increase depending on the name list provided by the Health Ministry for each day.
Island Hospital chief operating officer Stephanie Lee said they were honoured to be part of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.
“We’re thankful to the state Health Department for guiding us to set up the vaccination centre. We want to help the state reach the herd immunity.
“As we’re also one of the centres treating Covid-19 patients, the vaccination is important for us to protect our own medical team.
“We’re also open to invitation by the government to provide vaccination service to others in future. We are in a position to be more prepared for this vaccination process,” said Lee.
Ophthalmologist Dr Adrian Chan Soon Eng said he was pleasantly surprised to see Chow visiting the vaccination centre when he was about to be inoculated by nurse Nelson Raj.
“It’s very nice of him to come and observe the vaccination centre. His presence is to show that people should go for the vaccination. He wants everyone to be safe and it is good of him,” said Dr Chan.
Besides Dr Asmayani and Lee, others who accompanied Chow on the brief tour of the vaccination centre were Private Health Facilities Service Branch (CKAPS) head Dr Mohamad Iqbal Hamzah, Island Hospital medical adviser chairman Datuk Dr Lee Keat Hwa, medical adviser Dr Goh Kok Yeong and physician Dr H’ng Peng Kiat.
Over at the Lam Wah Ee Hospital (LWEH), its medical superintendent cum general surgeon Datuk Dr Yip Kok Thye led their 90-member team to take their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine today.
Dr Yip expressed his appreciation to the Health Ministry (MoH) for giving the trust to LWEH on March 10 to be one of the vaccination centres.
“MoH provides the vaccines, diluent, low dead-volume syringe and needles which are collected on a daily basis from the Penang Hospital.
“Vaccinations also are done strictly in accordance to the name list provided to us by the MoH,” Dr Yip told reporters after launching the hospital’s Covid-19 vaccination centre today.
According to Dr Cheang Hon Kit who is in charge of the LWEH Covid-19 vaccination centre, the vaccination centre has seven stations, namely triage, registration, counselling & taking of consent, vaccination, post-vaccination, observation and appointment.
“Starting from tomorrow and the next few days, we will try to vaccinate 300 frontliners from other private hospitals.
“And then if everything goes smoothly, we will go with 500 frontliners per day to speed up the process before the second phase starts in April for the high-risk group, comprising senior citizens,” he added.
Story by Riadz Akmal & K.H. Ong
Pix by Ahmad Adil Muhamad
Video by Alvie Cheng