REPORTING undocumented migrants who come forward to get vaccinated will only hamper the country’s goal of vaccinating everyone in the community, the Malaysian Medical Association said. 

In a press statement, its president, Dr Koh Kar Chai said he was dismayed to hear Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin’s statement that the government requires healthcare workers to notify security forces if undocumented migrants show up at health facilities and vaccination centres.  

Yesterday, Hamzah said the ruling was among the vaccination standard operating procedure decided by the cabinet for the vaccination programme of undocumented migrants. 

“This will definitely create a setback in our efforts to vaccinate everyone in the community,” Koh said. 

“Our Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin had during his tenure as the coordinating minister for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme mentioned that the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force guidelines have been approved to encourage such individuals to come forward for their vaccination under the principles, ‘no one is safe until everyone is safe’ and ‘no wrong door policy’. 

He said the guidelines were implemented while taking into consideration the various legislations in force at that time.

Koh said those individuals not already registered with MySejahtera are to undergo a process of documentation to enable them to be registered.  

However, he said, the mention that health service providers are to inform security forces about the presence of undocumented migrants at health and vaccination centres will send a wrong message to the undocumented migrants who are yet to be vaccinated. 

Yesterday, The Malaysian Insight reported that undocumented migrants have had to seek “underground” jabs for fear of getting arrested by the authorities.  

The group is resorting to this because they are fearful authorities can track their presence and whereabouts if they register on the MySejahtera app, and would be detained when they turn up for jabs at official vaccination centres. – September 24, 2021.