By Lian Cheng
KUCHING, Feb 22: About 100 medical personnel from other districts have been deployed to Sibu to relieve the stress of a huge need for healthcare workers caused by high numbers of Covid-19 cases reported daily.
“At this stage, we have deployed about 100 staff to go to Sibu. About 60 of them are still there,” said Sarawak Health director Dr Chin Zin Hing at a press conference to update Covid-19 today.
He said the Health Ministry is keeping tabs on Covid-19 situation in Sibu.
Sibu has been experiencing shortage of medical staff due to the high number of Covid-19 cases reporting daily as well as high infections among medical personnel.
“We will also replace those (the medical staff) who have been deployed (from other districts) to allow them to return to their place of origin.
“We will then send new (batch of medical) staff to relieve the stress on medical personnel in Sibu,” said Dr Chin.
Meanwhile, Dr Chin also revealed that the Health Ministry had compiled the full list of frontliners consisting of 97,000 of them.
“What we are trying to register now are those apart from the frontliners – those who are above 60 years old, and those who have underlying illnesses (or conditions).
“This is more for Phase 2 and Phase 3. For frontliners, we already have the name list,” said Dr Chin.
On Feb 15, Dr Chin announced that the first phase of Covid-19 vaccination will be administered to frontliners in 56 medical facilities across Sarawak from Feb 27, 2021.
The first phase of vaccination only involved 97,000 frontliners including medical and health personnel, police, army personnel and civil defence force.
The second phase will be for those above 60 years old and those who have underlying illnesses or conditions such as diabetes, hypertension or high cholesterol.
The third phase involved “others” – those who are below 60 years of age and who do not have any underlying conditions or illnesses. — DayakDaily
