MMA: Making health workers report on migrants sends wrong message
The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) is dismayed by the Home Ministry's instruction to health workers to notify the security forces if undocumented migrants turn up at vaccination centres.
The association said this sends the wrong message and could harm the country's vaccination efforts...
The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) is dismayed by the Home Ministry's instruction to health workers to notify the security forces if undocumented migrants turn up at vaccination centres.
The association said this sends the wrong message and could harm the country's vaccination efforts.
"This will definitely create a setback in our efforts to vaccinate everyone in the community," MMA president Dr Koh Kar Chai said in a statement today.
Home Minister Hamzah Zainuddin said that making healthcare workers report undocumented migrants to the authorities is part of a vaccination SOP that the cabinet agreed to on July 30.
He did not give a straight answer on whether undocumented migrants turning up for vaccination would be spared from enforcement.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin had stated that the guidelines for undocumented migrants and refugees to receive the shots were approved.
Khairy encouraged undocumented migrants to visit vaccination centres handled by NGOs.
There are concerns and distrust among undocumented migrant workers and refugees after mixed messages were sent out by various ministries following a series of clampdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic.
