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On Oct. 13, police officers in protective gear were seen at Westlite Jalan Tukang dormitory in Jurong after workers expressed their unhappiness with the failure to separate confirmed Covid-19 cases from other workers, and claimed that the quality of the food served to them was poor and unhygienic.

On Monday (Nov. 1), a number of People's Action Party (PAP), Workers' Party (WP), and Progress Singapore Party (PSP) Members of Parliament (Non-Constituency or otherwise) posed questions about the incident in Parliament, including asking for clarity on why the situation had occurred, and for relevant parties to be held accountable.

In response, Senior Minister of State for Manpower Koh Poh Koon stated that there had been shortcomings "by all parties", including the dormitory operator, the Assurance, Care and Engagement (ACE) Group — a division under the Ministry of Manpower — and the employer:

• The dormitory operator struggled to cope with the surge in cases.
• ACE stepped in but did not put in sufficient resources in time to resolve the problem.
• On the employer's side, workers were upset and raised issues about the quality and hygiene of the food provided.

Dormitory Recovery Programme

Koh explained that under the Dormitory Recovery Programme, which began to be implemented since Oct. 2, 45 larger dormitories now have dedicated blocks or rooms set aside within their compounds as Dormitory Recovery Facilities (DRFs).

Here, workers who are asymptomatic or with only mild symptoms can recuperate and be monitored while being segregated from other workers.

Additionally, three Centralised Recovery Facilities (CRFs) are available in the larger dormitories to cater for workers who do not have access to the 45 DRFs.

In total, the 45 DRFs and three CRFs have 11,000 recovery beds.

Over 17,000 workers have gone through the Dormitory Recovery Programme and have safely recovered, Koh said:

"The workers appreciate the convenience of dormitory recovery since they can return to their own rooms on discharge and resume work very rapidly."

Surge in cases at Westlite

Koh stated that following the implementation of the DRP on Oct. 2, the Westlite Jalan Tukang dormitory operator began adjusting to the new protocols.

The dormitory has around 3,000 residents, almost all newly arrived workers from China in the past three or four months.

However, when 174 new Covid-19 cases were detected on Oct. 10, the dormitory operator "had difficulty" processing the sudden surge of workers that needed to be conveyed.

The next day, on Oct. 11, several "key members" of the dormitory staff tested positive for Covid-19 themselves, and did not come to work.

Thus, the Assurance, Care and Engagement (ACE) Group officers on the ground stepped in to assist the operator.

Together with ACE, SembCorp Marine — which employs around half of the dormitory residents — carried out a mass testing exercise at the worksite and dormitory on Oct. 12.

This mass testing exercise then yielded another 278 Covid-19 positive cases. The vaccinated workers needed to be conveyed to a CRF, while unvaccinated workers needed to be brought to another appropriate isolation facility.

However, this occurred while the team was still trying to process the previous surge, and thus the dormitory operator struggled to process the high volume.

"While ACE officers tried to assist the operator between 11th and 12th of October, it too did not put in enough resources during this time to triage, process and convey the Covid-19 positive workers before the second surge on the 13th of October," said Koh.

Stabilised situation

After the "incident" on Oct. 13, Koh said, ACE took "swift actions" to stabilise the situation, such as by doubling the number of officers managing the conveyance of all infected workers from the dormitory.

"Such that by the evening of 13th of October, about 70 per cent of the workers needing conveyance had been sent to the appropriate recovery or isolation facilities. By the next day on the 14th of October, the backlog was cleared."

Additionally, Koh explained, ACE officers worked with the employer and dormitory operator to engage workers and assure them that their feedback would be looked into, and that there would be a timely conveyance of infected individuals.

"The workers calmed down and returned to their rooms," he said.

ACE also deployed a mobile clinical team to the dormitory, to augment the medical services already available to the dormitory residents through regional medical centres and telemedicine.

Koh added: "All those who wanted to seek medical attention were seen by the medical team on the same day. This helped to reduce the waiting time and allayed much of the fears and anxieties that the workers experienced."

Food quality

Regarding the workers' concerns about the quality and hygiene standards of the food provided by SembCorp Marine, Koh said that the government "take[s] this very seriously and have asked the employer to address the complaints".

He said that the employer has said that they have made improvements to the food and that the feedback from workers has been positive.

"The Ministry will not hesitate to take actions against any errant employer who fail to ensure workers' access to safe food," Koh said.

In addition, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) is investigating the food safety practices of this particular caterer.

Encourage workers to get vaccinated or verified

The workers in the dormitory were offered vaccination under Singapore's national vaccination programme. A small number of them took it up.

The employer has since clarified that these workers were vaccinated in their home country before arriving in Singapore.

Their vaccination status needs to be verified through a serology test and WHO-EUL vaccination documentation before they can be registered as vaccinated in Singapore.

Koh added that MOM has been working with the employer to expedite the verification, and that progress has been made. About 60 per cent of the Sembcorp Marine workers have been verified to have received WHO-EUL approved vaccines, while a number have not been vaccinated with WHO-EUL vaccines.

Koh said that the government also calls on workers who are not yet vaccinated, or do not yet have their overseas vaccinations verified, to complete their vaccination or verification as soon as possible, in order to protect them from serious illness.

Situation calm since Oct. 13

Koh said that the situation in the dormitory has been calm since Oct. 13, and ACE officers, the employer, and dormitory operator continue to be at the dormitory each day to engage the workers.

Over the past two weeks, ACE introduced more videos and infographics to better explain Singapore’s strategy for dealing with Covid-19 and the recovery process in dormitories, as "newly arrived workers at the dormitory were used to a different Covid-19 management strategy in their home country".

These include videos of migrant workers sharing their recovery journey and assuring their fellow migrant workers, and videos of doctors answering common questions from migrant workers in their native languages.

"I urge employers and dormitory operators to do more to help our workers adjust to the new normal, communicate changes that will affect workers’ well-being and actively address potential knowledge gaps of their workers and residents."

Koh added that the government is "grateful and encouraged" by the support offered to the workers by the Chinese business community, the Chinese embassy, NGOs such as HealthServe, Migrant Workers’ Centre, and the wider community.

"With the support and hard work of all these partners, we will learn from this episode, continue to strengthen the partnership with all stakeholders and community partners to ensure the well-being of our migrant workers as we transit to endemicity."

Top photos via Weixin and Facebook / Gowhereforsg. 

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