PETALING JAYA: The nurse who administered the vaccine dose was very professional in her conduct, says Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

       "Her tactic of not showing him the needle was very effective and helped calm my son. I hope all doctors and nurses involved in PICKids can be protected from the lies of certain parties," said Khairy in a post on his official Twitter account on Wednesday (Feb 16).

       This comes after a video featuring the nurse was posted on the Health Ministry's official Facebook account.

       In the video, the unnamed nurse explained that she had followed the proper procedures.

       “I showed the parents the vial, the way I drew the vaccine out of the vial as well as the volume in the syringe I had drawn out. The parents agreed with the dose which was 0.2ml for Pfizer Kids,’’ she said.

       She refuted allegations that she had allowed the vaccine to drip out instead of injecting the entire dose into the arm of Khairy’s youngest son Raif.

       Both the Health Minister and his wife Nori Abdullah were with Raif when the vaccination was being administered.

       “I did not remove any vaccine that was not injected into the child’s body. He was standing at my side and hence I had to position myself near him and if I showed my hand clearly he would have been able to see the needle and be afraid," said the nurse.

       “So I had to lower my hand a little and try to distract him and told him to count from one to ten,’’ she added.

       The nurse then added that when she quickly jabbed and counted from one to ten before pushing the plunger in once she saw that Raif was okay and did not move

       “Logically from the side view, how can you see the vaccine drip out. It cannot drip unless I push it with one hand which I did not do. Everyone could see that clearly,’’ she said.

       She also said that according to the procedure, a little air has to be pulled into the syringe once it is jabbed to ensure that the needle did not hit a blood vessel and added that the plunger will be pushed once it is clear that there is no blood in the syringe.

       The nurse said she then disconnected the syringe from the child’s arm, showed it to the parents and plastered the injection site once Raif had been vaccinated.

       “Please do not make assumptions and accusations as it involves people’s lives. What if it happened to you? How would you feel – uncomfortable and angry? I just did my job to the best of my ability to make the child comfortable,’’ she said.

       The nurse added that she always makes sure that the children she vaccinates are comfortable first and said that she tries her best to make the process smooth to prevent them from being traumatised.

       “Please investigate before judging and demanding that I give an explanation. I feel I have done my duty whereby I explained to the parents accordingly. Please stop it. Please do not make baseless allegations,’’ said the nurse.