Facing a severe shortage of medical personnel, the Singapore government sent the Singapore army to serve as makeshift clinics at foreign worker dormitories. 70 medics, including conscripts, from the Army Medical Services, were deployed to the S11 dormitory in Punggol and Westlite Toh Guan dormitory in Jurong East.
Alongside patrolling police officers, the medics attended to foreign workers with symptoms, and performed basic health checks like taking temperature and reporting suspect cases for testing.
The two dormitories that houses a total of 19,800 foreign workers have seen active infections of 118 and 38 confirmed cases respectively. The infection hastened due to poor sanitation and overcrowding at the dormitories, first reported by States Times Review.
Aside from the shortage of medical personnel, Singapore public hospitals are also running out of beds, medical supplies and equipment. The Singapore government did not disclose its bed capacity, but the hospitals “urgently” – according to state media Straits Times – needed to move active patients to the new makeshift hospital at Singapore Expo by tomorrow Friday (April 10).