More than 800 medical and non-medical staff from the National University Health System (NUHS) have been providing medical support and swab testing for Covid-19 in Singapore's dormitories, where the vast majority of the country's Covid-19 cases have in recent weeks been concentrated.

As of Apr. 21, 7,127 out of Singapore's 9,125 total Covid-19 cases, or about 78 per cent, are work permit holders residing in foreign worker dormitories.

Supporting dormitory operations

In a Facebook post on Apr. 19, NUHS shared about the work of their teams in supporting Singapore's dormitory lockdown operations amid the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak.

Since early April, the NUHS teams — which include staffers from National University Hospital, Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, Alexandra Hospital, National University Polyclinics, National University Centre for Oral Health, Singapore, and NUHS Regional Health System Office — have been working to support the operations in the dormitories:

"Since early April, our clinicians, nurses, allied health professionals, administrative and ancillary staff, have started providing medical support and swabbing for COVID-19 in dormitories as part of a national effort to care for our foreign workers."

The post revealed that the staffers volunteered themselves to help with the medical services and mobile swabbing operations in the dormitories, especially in view of the rise in the number of cases emerging there.

An NUHS spokesperson told Mothership that more than 800 staff — both medical and non-medical — from NUHS are involved in the efforts to provide on-site medical support for the dormitory-based foreign workers.

These work in teams of between 12 and 24, and depending on the size of the dormitories and their needs, work in personal protective equipment (PPE) for three- to four-hour stretches.

This surge of help, the medical group said, is especially heartening in a time where there is a need to manage the increasingly-overwhelmed circumstances at the group's hospitals and clinics.

"Apart from playing an active role to contain the outbreaks, our healthcare colleagues are out in full force to reassure our foreign workers that we are standing by them in their time of need as they play an important role in building Singapore.

NUHS will continue to care for our workers."

The NUHS spokesperson also said that members of public have reached out to them to be part of the group's dormitory operations.

Volunteers are welcome to be part of the team on the ground in the dormitories, and support the team in non-clinical tasks such as registration of residents and temperature-taking.

Precautionary measures and training are also provided to volunteers.

Anyone interested in volunteering can register here or contact NUHS at [email protected].

You can watch a video of an NUHS staff volunteer assisting a worker at his dormitory here.

You can read the full Facebook post and view more photos of the on-ground operations here:

Top photo via Facebook / NUHS.