SG public hosps have been part of the national effort to provide medical support to foreign worker dormitories heavily affected by COVID-19. This is a snapshot of the scale of dorm ops at my home academic health system. Massive effort happening in all three of our public clusters

It’s been a unique experience shifting hospital based staff into a field environment. Most of us have no background in humanitarian medicine ops overseas let alone here at home in SG. We have learned as we go what works best in each of the very diff dorm situations.

As a public health physician I do both clinical work- caring for patients and the occupational health of volunteers but also admin work like process- design and trouble shooting. I have so much respect for professional logistics and ops ppl who manage large operations everyday.

It’s challenging physically (PPE in our humidity) but also tension of resource allocation. esp for hospital ppl used to delivering full services in a tertiary setting, trade-offs to balance maintaining clinical quality w/ constrained resources and practicality are hard to process

I hope from this experience hospitals continue to play an even greater role outside their walls into the community of the regions they are responsible for. A regional health system can’t revolve around a hospital ; it’s about achieving best outcomes for the POPULATION in our care

I also hope the experience of supporting medical care for FW makes hospital folks more aware of the social, economic and political determinants of health that they often don’t consider in their limited interactions with migrant workers, usually after a workplace accident.

Right now we have taken over the primary care of FW, provided them with their chronic meds but I hope we all reflect on what happens when we leave. The system we go back to is one where workers can’t access the care we’ve been giving due to cost or inability to take time off.

Thank you to all the staff volunteers at all the health systems https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🙏🏾" title="Folded hands (medium dark skin tone)" aria-label="Emoji: Folded hands (medium dark skin tone)"> . No one arrowed them to go to the dormitories and they are not earning any extra salary. Many are even volunteering on their day off, weekends , public holidays. It’s all for patients.