The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) is to be commended for emphasizing that no VIP should jump the vaccine queue and that all frontliners should be vaccinated first. To ensure top performance of our healthcare system (both public and private), all frontliners should be given priority to be vaccinated as they are our first line of defence in this Covid-19 war.
However when all target frontliners have been vaccinated, we should allow the private sector to participate in the vaccination plan by allowing them to import and provide vaccination services to members of the public who are willing to pay for it.
When vaccines are limited in supply, it is imperative that the government regulates who gets vaccinated first and prioritises those with the highest risk and exposure.
Opening up vaccination services to the private sector will give members of the public a choice in selecting their preferred vaccine. Firstly, with various vaccine providers in the market with varying reviews on its efficacy, the public should be given the opportunity to purchase the vaccine of their choice. This is a pertinent point especially when the government has emphasized that those getting vaccinations from the public sector will not get to choose their preferred vaccine.
The second reason we should allow the private sector to participate is that many individuals want to expedite their vaccination for a variety of reasons, be it travel, business, education and so on. A person may need to be vaccinated due to requirements from a foreign authority or country. Allowing the private sector to participate will give that choice to individuals, to either wait for their turn or opt for private hospital vaccination.
In the early days of the pandemic,the Ministry of Health made the mistake of not roping in private healthcare providers to complement the government’s fight against the pandemic. Excluding them had resulted in overworking all medical personnel in the government sector and making testing inaccessible to all except close contacts of patients who had tested positive. As a result of that, I had embarked on promoting affordable RTK Antigen tests to the general public by collaborating with private clinics.
In his statement, Khairy Jamaluddin said that according to the national immunisation plan, 70% to 80% of the country will be immunised by February 2022. This timeline can be shortened if we pool all our resources to battle this global pandemic.
Our vaccination process started later than our neighbouring countries (eg. Singapore) but if we include the private sector, we can avoid falling back off the curve and reach our target sooner. Even if we speed up the process by 2 or 3 months, the economic benefits will be huge and so many businesses and industries can be revitalised. Too many businesses are on the brink of collapse, and expediting the vaccination process might make a difference for them.
I strongly believe that a public-private collaboration might just be what we need to win this war against the pandemic. Hence, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) should initiate this collaboration for when the global market is ready to supply vaccines in higher quantities.