Cheating on the Hajj Vaccinations

There was an article that went viral recently about people who were going to umrah and haj who were trying to cheat on the vaccinations – as it turned out, they had a pool of doctors who were willing to sign on the vaccination book without actually giving the jab. 

I. Cannot. Brain. 

These are people who refuse vaccinations on the basis of religion and purity, and at the same time, they believe it’s okay to start a holy journey with a lie? Even to a Muslim as liberal as myself, I find it highly hypocritical to use the name of God in the same breath that one chooses to justify lying.

As I heatedly narrated the story to my aunt, a general practitioner herself, she stunned me into further silence by telling me how a specific clinic in Kajang would do the same thing. Even worse, she told me of tours organized by specific Ustaz’s who would actually organize this anti-vaccination scams! The members of the tour group would just be told that all the documentation would be settled for them, including a stamped book certifying that vaccinations were taken would be among these documents. 

It is a far cry from the basis of religion. 

She was careful not to mention the name – I would have reported the clinic in a heartbeat. 

As I indignantly told her how unethical it was, she told me that the clinic had previously been reported – it closed down and just re-opened under a new name, with the exact same doctors and the exact same practices. 

The doctors involved are also a disgrace to the medical fraternity; those who know the risks involved and still choose to comply to the requests of these individuals, just for the paltry sum of RM10 per person? 

That’s how much it costs. 

The cost of a lie is RM10. 

The cost of an individual possibly contracting disease. 

The cost of that individual spreading that disease in one of the most highly populated areas in the world. 

Sometimes I really wonder what goes through the mind of these individuals. 

The writers of the original article have apparently forwarded the names of these doctors to the Malaysian Medical Council. I honestly hope they get just retribution for their actions. As anonther doctor aptly said, these people are just selfish.

It is a difficult battle. 

We don’t need our own fraternity making it worse.