Dr Annuar (right) greets the health worker at PPV at UCTS accompanying him are (from second left) Tai and Dr Khairuddin.
SIBU (June 24): About 14,000 people from various companies and organisations here will receive their vaccination at the University College of Technology Sarawak (UCTS) vaccination centre (PPV) starting next Monday.
Sibu Division Disaster Management Committee (SDDMC) coordinator Dr Annuar Rapaee said the mass vaccination at UCTS is under the industrial vaccination programme.
“UCTS has been chosen to be one of the PPV meant for the industry. The full scale operation will start on Monday in which they will 1,000 vaccinations per day.
“We will do it until we have completed all the 14,000 and then the second dose later, in between, we will see what is going on and what we can help in the vaccination process,” he told reporters during his visit the trial run of PPV at UCTS yesterday.
Dr Annuar, who is also UCTS chairman, said that ProtectHealth Corporation had given the approval to conduct industrial PPV in UCTS.
He added Pansar Berhad is taking the lead by inviting other industries to participate in this industrial vaccination programme at UCTS in collaboration with SEGi University Sibu Clinical Campus.
“I would like to thank SEGi because they are the health provider. All their staff are deployed here to help out,” he said.
On the slowing down of the registration at Sibu Indoor Stadium, Dr Annuar said the glitch did not affect the vaccination process.
He said system slowing down is bound to happen when there was massive event such as the vaccination at Sibu Indoor Stadium.
“Issues will definitely crop up, when people are uploading or downloading, of course, this thing will happen. There is no rescheduling of appointment, it still continues as scheduled,” he said.
According to Pansar Berhad managing director Pemanca Datuk Jason Tai, the 14,000 people to be vaccinated starting next week Monday are from more than 20 companies and associations.
“ProtechHealth only recognised one company, which is us and since our proposal is completed, we were treated as the lead company and everybody else basically just add up to join us.
“We have big companies like WTK, RH, Ta Ann, KTS, CCK, Hock Peng; almost all the companies in Sibu, then we have those from the ship building and the Sarawak Association of Maritime Industries (Samin), Sibu Chamber of Commerce, and so forth. Basically, the business members will be part of us.
“Right now, we are doing the master list, organisation by organisation, key in everything and upload to ProtectHealth, and ProtectHealth will link to MySejahtera for the appointment to be set. It is quite organised,” he said.
According to him, company with more than 300 staff members are allowed to apply to ProtectHealth to conduct their own PPV.
However, due to limited Health Care Organiser (HCO), many applications were not approved.
In Sibu, most the HCO are being taken up by the Rejang Medical Centre, KPJ, vaccination at Sibu Indoor Stadium, Sibu Jaya, Lanang Health Clinic and so forth.
He said Pansar had no intention of taking the health provider from these vaccination centres because it would be unfair for the community.
He said since Pansar has close relationship with SEGi University Sibu Clinical Campus at Sibu Hospital, he approached the dean for help.
SEGi agreed and applied to ProtectHealth to be the HCO and it was approved.
“At least, when we get this started, we will not take any resources from the existing vaccination centres. Because there is no point of taking from them and slow down the vaccination process there.
“So, we worked together, and we invited our corporate friends to join us and that is how this idea came about.
“Industrial PPV was supposed to be specific company, but for PPV at UCTS, many companies would be using the same facilities. This is the unique point,” he said.
On the trial run yesterday, Tai said that about 500 people were vaccinated during the trial run.
“The trial run today started at 8.30am and I can say that this morning was not very smooth, but then we started to get used to it, around 2pm, the vaccination almost completed.”
He said if the vaccination next week were to run smoothly, eventually more than 1,000 people could be vaccinated in a day.
Tai disclosed that to ensure smooth operation at the vaccination centre the organisers had come up with the pre-registration form with a QR Code.
“The bottleneck is actually at the registration counter, the vaccination itself takes very little time, so we come up with this system,” he said.
Also present at the inspection of the PPV was UCTS vice chancellor Professor Datuk Dr Khairuddin Abdul Hamid.