Dear Valued MDES members,
We hope you and your family are staying safe and healthy at this challenging time.
As you are aware Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH) has diverted all its resources to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, all services for noncommunicable diseases (NCD) patients such as diabetic patients have been deferred to July 2020 at the earliest. This will affect significantly the B40 group, the elderly and those who are living alone. Even when the Movement Control Order is lifted, these NCD services are unlikely to be available for a few months. Failure of appropriate engagement of the B40 group may have potential catastrophic consequences in the terms of diabetes control and the subsequent worsening of their complications.
The Digital Health Malaysia (DHM) together with Malaysian Diabetes Educators Society (MDES) are collaborating to organise a Corporate Social Responsibility initiative to support MOH in the current COVID-19 pandemic. The objective is to engage and support diabetic patients from the B40 group.
MDES is inviting and welcoming all MDES members to join this meaningful project as MDES volunteers.
What are MDES volunteers’ roles?
1. To reply patients’ enquiries related to diabetes via Short Messaging Service (SMS) or WhatsApp messages
2. To provide general advice eg. food intake, medication timing.
How does it work?
1. The engagement via SMS / WhatsApp will go through a common platform developed by DHM
2. Volunteers’ personal info eg. contact number will be concealed
3. MOH will provide patients’ information – name, age, address, name of follow-up health clinic, type of diabetes
4. If a patient needs urgent medical attention eg. hyperglycemia or unwell etc, MDES volunteer to divert the case to MOH Response Team using the common platform
5. If a patient’s enquiry is beyond MDES volunteer’s capability, the case will be diverted back to the same platform with two options:
a) Option 1, if the case is not urgent and the request for advice is not within the professional training of the MDES volunteer, eg, a pharmacist receives a request for advice about diet, another volunteer can pick up the case and respond.
b) Option 2, if the case’s request is related to medical management, as allied health care professional, the volunteer will divert the case to MOH Response Team
How soon should I respond to a patient’s enquiry?
1. All enquiries should be answered by MDES volunteer asynchronous, but within the designated time frame (to be advised later)
Which language should I use to reply patient?
1. You may reply in English / Bahasa Malaysia, the AI (artificial intelligence) of common platform will do the translation according to patient’s preferred language
When will the project start and for how long?
1. We aim to kick-start the project in middle of May 2020
2. The project will run for 3 months
As MOH is expecting the project to be started soonest possible in May 2020, we hope to hear from you before 9th May 2020 if you are interested to join as a MDES volunteer.
MDES will request a letter from MOH to your employer to seek approval for you to undertake this project as a MDES volunteer.
Kindly email your details as listed below to mdes0507@gmail.com if you are interested.
1. Name
2. Contact number
3. Email address
4. Current work place
5. Profession
6. Spoken / written languages
7. Preferred voluntary days
8. Preferred voluntary time slot
We thank you in advance for supporting DHM_MDES CSR project, and we hope to hear from you before 9th May 2020.
Thank you.
Best regards,
MDES Executive Committee
