LETTERS: While everyone is staying at home, I'm not excluded as a pharmacy lecturer, having my usual duty – online lecture, classes, meeting and manuscript writing. Not until lately, the call for being medical volunteers reached me at the newly established vaccination centre in our university.
My routine has now completely changed! Despite having my core duty as a lecturer and researcher, without further hesitation, I took up the challenge and registered myself to be a medical volunteer albeit I have not obtained my vaccination until today.
I told myself, 'It is time to change my role and robe to a pharmacist to serve the public!'. Together with some of my colleagues, we were both excited and anxious, mainly because we have not practised for a long time in the healthcare setting as a registered pharmacist.
As a formulation scientist myself, I spend more of my time dealing with drugs and formulations than the actual patients. Nevertheless, we are glad to have adequate time to undergo some training including discussion with medical teams.
A recent visit to the SPICE Arena vaccination centre for observations and sharing from the medical teams have helped us a lot in performing a proper health screening to identify the possible risk factors and contraindications for vaccination.
Finally, the day has come! We get ready very early in the morning to welcome our first batch of vaccine candidates. To make me more nervous, I received the very first vaccine candidate of the day! It was truly an honour to be able to help the candidates in answering their concerns to reduce their anxiety, making them more comfortable and confident in getting the jab!
We were also impressed to see most candidates were enthusiastic and in fact excited to be vaccinated, probably after a long wait. Owing to the pilot run for vaccination at the new centre, the crowd was rather small and we were happy to be able to complete the task smoothly with proper control of the whole situation with the assistance of other volunteers including the university staff and students!
Volunteering may promote well-being, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic with fewer social connections. I believe this volunteering experience can increase our social capital in the war against Covid-19 by achieving herd immunity and bringing back the normal in the good old days.
I can feel part of our community again by joining this volunteering activity this time that benefits my emotional health, sense of self and satisfaction with life. This is truly valuable for one's personal growth and development, especially during the lockdown period with curtailed social activity!
Even though joining the volunteering does not guarantee a priority of being vaccinated, I see this as a potential way to boost my well-being in a time of crisis while contributing to my own community! In the fight against Covid-19, I believe everyone is frontliner and can do their parts well to reduce the spread of infection!
With the opening of more vaccination centres, I hope to see more encouraging responses from the public to join the alliance to get vaccinated and to end the pandemic real soon!
DR GOH CHOON FU
Senior lecturer, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Universiti Sains Malaysia
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times