KUALA LUMPUR: The Association of Private Hospital of Malaysia (APHM) is urging the government to establish an internationally recognised vaccine passport, linking vaccination certificates and even Covid-19 test results in MySejahtera.
President Datuk Dr Kuljit Singh said the recognition would allow Malaysia to boost its medical tourism and attract foreign tourists into the country, thus expediting the economic recovery.
"Vaccine passport is an important digital platform that uses robust blockchain technology in identifying travellers' information on vaccination certificates, testing results and quarantine periods observed," he told the New Straits Times when contacted today.
Dr Kuljit said the vaccine passport must be recognised globally, connecting travellers to different platforms to ease travelling journey.
There had been discussions with China and Singapore for the recognition of Malaysia's digital vaccination certification on a global platform.
However, he said this certification has to be "reciprocal" in ensuring the information's authenticity for the vaccinations and testing.
"We are concerned about our safety and the arrival of medical tourists from other countries, especially the recognition of their vaccination and testing status.
"We urge the government to allow us to participate in these negotiations to include us as we also need to give our input.
"We are an interested and concerned party (private hospitals). We should have a seamless method of uploading the required information through the digital application," he said.
On the outlook for medical tourism in Malaysia, Dr Kuljit said the association would closely work with the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) to facilitate medical tourism at the earliest possible stage without compromising the safety of the rakyat.
"Malaysia has the highest number of medical tourists between 2018 and 2019. A lot of patients in the region rely on Malaysia to seek medical treatment," he said.
The medical tourism industry grew 14 per cent of revenue to RM1.5 billion from over 1.2 million medical tourists in 2019, according to MHTC.
Medical tourism in Malaysia recorded RM1.7 billion in revenue in 2019. MHTC had reportedly projected up to 75 per cent decrease in medical tourism revenue in 2020 with RM500 million, hampered by the closure of international borders and stricter standard operating procedures (SOP).
MHTC said Malaysian healthcare providers were predominantly excelled at cardiology, oncology, fertility, orthopaedics and cosmetic surgery.
Dr Kuljit said the prospect of medical tourism this year would be brighter as most of the local healthcare front liners had been vaccinated to facilitate domestic and international medical tourisms.
"We are happy that the government has vaccinated most of the healthcare front liners. By end of this month, we will cover almost 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the private healthcare front liners.
"This was good value and proposition to medical tourist that they can feel safe as all staff completed their vaccinations," he said.
Dr Kuljit said the faster to get the vaccine for the entire population, it would be better for Malaysia to attract both tourists and medical tourist to come into the country.
"Malaysia vaccination programme should be enhanced. About 60 registered private hospitals will assist the government's vaccination programme beginning next week.
"With this public vaccination, we hope private hospitals can procure their own vaccines to further vaccinate more people especial, the economic front liners to achieve herd immunity at a faster rate, thus facilitating in business reopening and tourisms," he said.
Dr Kuljit said APHM was in talks with the government to allow private hospitals to procure different vaccines by offering the option to the public.
"It will be paid by the patients, alternative choice provided for the patient for those who want to get the vaccine for specific reasons, for example, students and business fraternity," he said.
Private hospitals are likely to procure the vaccine beginning in October (at the earliest) due to the limited supply of vaccine worldwide.
"However, we feel that it will be too late for economic frontlines to restart their businesses as they run a risk of infection, while their production and business work will get hampered, denting the economy.
"We have proposed to have the private vaccine programme earlier than October this year," he said.
Dr Kuljit said the government had progressively done a good job to inoculate most of the medical front liners. However, the second and third phases of the vaccination programmes should be well-promoted as the public's response for registration was slow.
According to Health Ministry's latest report, so far 434,301 people have been fully vaccinated and 671,589 people have received their first dose and are currently waiting for their subsequent doses.
Meanwhile, currently, about 8.83 million people have registered for the vaccination programme MySejahtera.
Dr Kuljit said private hospitals had initiated their assistance to help the government in promoting more public and patients for vaccine registration
Among others initiatives such as creating health test, kiosk and information booth within the hospitals building to enhance the registration of vaccines.