A screenshot of the Facebook live session with Dr Sim (right). See is at third left.
KUCHING (May 2): The state government is urged to set up a Sarawak Covid-19 Registration for Immunisation Task Force (SCRITF) to register one million eligible Sarawakians for vaccination by end of July.
In making this call, Batu Lintang assemblyman See Chee How said the proposed SCRITF should comprise representatives of all political parties and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) of all sectors in Sarawak, all willing to volunteer and commit to the cause of safeguarding the state’s well-being and take responsibility to register eligible Sarawakians for a state-wide immunisation exercise.
He recalled that Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg had recently approved the setting up of two committees to oversee the state’s s Covid-19 vaccination plan.
The committees are the Sarawak Covid-19 Advisory Group (Scovag) and the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF).
“However, the setting up of a task force to strategise and aggressively pursue the registration of eligible Sarawakians for immunisation is of equal importance, now that the SDMC (Sarawak Disaster Management Committee) has expressed its concern and anxiety that Sarawak may have more vaccine than Sarawakians who are registered for vaccination,” he said in a statement on May 1.
The statement was issued following a Facebook live session with Dr Xavier Sim, a Sarawakian general physician presently serving at the Klang General Hospital.
Dr Sim is a haematologist and one of the founders of a voluntary medical service group ‘Reach’ that dispatches doctors and healthcare medical personnel to help the rural indigenous communities in Sarawak regularly in the last 15 years.
Based on the figures over the last four weeks, See said the results of Sarawak’s vaccination registration exercise appeared to be sluggish.
He noted that from April 8, the total number of eligible Sarawakians registered for vaccination was 682,961 and the number increased to 798,456 on April 15, 852,937 (April 22) and 894,044 (April 29).
“In between this period, the number registered each week had gone down from 115,495 to 54,481, to 41,107 on April 29. This is quite similar to the national registration exercise.
“The country is suffering a ‘trust deficit’ in its administration and the containment of the pandemic. This is a huge contrast to all other countries which have shown that the voluntary registration and execution of their country immunisation programmes are executed smoothly,” pointed out the Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) lawmaker.
To ensure that Sarawak can ramp up the number of eligible Sarawakians who will come forward to be registered for vaccination, See said the state should go back to the drawing board to strategize and come out with a holistic plan to aggressively pursue the plan and course to complete the registration of all eligible Sarawakians.
He felt that various political parties, NGOs and religious institutions should be enlisted to help in this state-wide voluntary exercise.
On the other hand, he said the government departments and agencies should emulate their administrative counterparts in other countries to come out with incentives and privileges for those eligible Sarawakians who were registered and would register for the vaccination.
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