BINTULU, Jan 24: Large companies, especially oil and gas companies, have been reminded not to take advantage of the free mass Covid-19 screening facility at Sungai Plan to test their staff.
Bintulu Member of Parliment (MP) Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing said doing so may tie up precious resources and time needed to test the most vulnerable residents in the area.
“This act by the large companies may place more burden on the medical staff who are already under tremendous pressure to complete screenings there on time.
“I have received many complaints from residents near the screening centre. It was extremely disappointing to learn of several large companies with their vast resources, trucking in their own employees from outside Sg Plan to save money with free screening,” he said in a post on his Facebook page.
Tiong said those large companies must show moral responsibility by bearing their own testing costs, strictly control the movements of their employees, and not adding to the worries of communities facing the infections.
Furthermore, he added, employees from these companies originate from various places in and out of Sarawak and this must be taken into account as many community infections occur because asymptomatic carriers unknowingly infect the community around them.
Tiong asserted their managers should have civic-mindedness to cooperate in this regard and not tie up precious public resources for their own benefit and at the same time exercise integrity by honestly reporting movements of their employees, especially those who return from red zones.
“Bintulu today (Jan 23) has marked 14 new confirmed cases, even as the test results of the samples collected in Sg Plan have yet to be fully released.
“If the mass screenings cannot be completed with the consecutive days, a discussion would need to be held with the Bintulu Health Department to decide whether to extend the temporary screening station to another day or divert the public to a government hospital to test for the coronavirus,” he added. — DayakDaily
