INSUFFICIENT Covid-19 test kits and long queues at the clinics are among the concerns of employers required to screen their workers for infection before resuming operations on Monday when the economy reopens for business.

Employers allowed to start work have been told to ensure all their workers undergo a health screening at any of the 3,000 Socso panel clinics starting April 27.

But employer groups told The Malaysian Insight that rapid test kits are still not available at most of the clinics. Where the test kits are available, the queues are long.

This has raised fears that the employers would be penalised if they do not manage to get a clean bill of health for all their workers on time.

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced yesterday that the government would conditionally allow more economic sectors to reopen from Monday.

He said that during the about 40 days of shutdown, the country lost RM2.6 billion a day. He said about RM63 billion has been lost since March 18, when the order was enforced.

“If we extend the MCO for another month, the country will lose another RM35 billion, resulting in total losses of RM98 billion,” Muhyiddin said in a Labour Day address broadcast live on national and satellite TV.

Malaysian Employers Federation executive chairman Shamsuddin Bardan said employers were told by the doctors at the panel clinics that rapid test kits were not available.

“Many of our members have been in touch with Socso panel doctors, but the answer is the same – the test kits are not with them yet, so they cannot do the testing,” Shamsuddin told The Malaysian Insight.

The costs of the tests are borne by Socso.

Shamsuddin said even if the employers were willing to pay for the workers to be screened at a private healthcare facility, it.is not permissible for them to do so.

“This is causing so much of confusion. Employers are apprehensive about starting operations as their staff have not been tested,” he said.

Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) president Soh Thian Lai said an estimated 400,000 people will be returning to work.

Putrajaya has ordered 200,000 rapid antigen test kits from South Korea.

It is unclear if the government has ordered more test kits in anticipation of the number of people who have to be tested,” said Soh.

Soh said BP Healthcare is the sole service provider for the screenings and it has only 37 diagnostic centres nationwide.

He said the rush is such that some employers have not been able to even get through to the clinics to make an appointment for the test

He said most employers are opting to conduct screening on their premises rather than send their employees to the centres to avoid disruption to operations.

Soh urged Socso to expand the list of panel healthcare facilities approved by the Health Ministry to conduct the RT-PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test.

Soh said FMM members also want to be able to register their workers for tests en-bloc instead of individually.

En-bloc applications will allow employers to track the appointments, testing process and test results as well as enable them to take immediate action if a worker tests positive for the virus.

“The challenge facing employers is that most of the operator-level employees as well as foreign workers do not have email addresses and this has slowed down the registration process.

“Employers also do not have control and oversight over the registration process when it is done individually by the employees, and coordinating the entire registration process before the appointment can be made with the service provider take time.”

SME Association of Malaysia president Michael Kang said the process has not been smooth for the busineeses rushing to reopen for business on Monday.

He was also concerned about the need for social distancing which would prevent workers from travelling in groups.

Kang added that there have been cases where only one employee at a time is allowed to go for the test, which slows the process, raising worries that there is not even time for all the workers to be screened by Monday. – May 2, 2020.