Sibu Hospital to extend Covid19 vaccination programme to public
SIBU: Sibu Hospital will extend its Covid-19 vaccination programme to the public today in an effort to speed up vaccinations here.
Sibu Hospital director Dr Nanthakumar Thirunavukkarasu said this is the first time the hospital will offer vaccination to the public and its first target group is residents of Permai area.
“Before this, we never opened for the public. We kept the vaccines for our patients. This is the first time, and we will only do it once a week, which is on Saturday.
“Our target is to accept 4,000 members of the public for this initiative, and we will give 1,000 doses per week, depending on the vaccines available to us,” he said, adding the programme will run from 8am until 6pm.
He advised members of the public who had received a call from Sibu Hospital to go for vaccination.
Dr Nanthakumar said the vaccination programme is important in an effort to achieve herd immunity, so that Sibu can break the chain of transmission or at least bring down cases to a manageable level.
“We need to resume other
services because all other services such as specialised cases are all being postponed.
“There are a lot of diseases as well like diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, and so forth that need to be taken care of and not be neglected. We do not want things like people are not dying of Covid but die of something else,” he said.
He pointed out that while Covid-19 cases here have dropped, there are still Covid19 patients in the hospital, including in the Intensive Care Unit.
Dr Nanthakumar added the hospital has vaccinated about 70 per cent of its staff and patients.
“So now I hope everyone can play their role in getting vaccinated, maintain standard operating procedures,” he said.